I Hope the Zombies Don't Have Gold Star Memberships

There are online forums for everyone. I stumbled on one for zombie fans when they linked to an old post of mine, about a short zombie movie that was filmed in my neighborhood. Somehow my blog post got confused with the official site for the short backyard production.

Anyway, the zombie mix-up reminded me of a fun topic my kids bring up occasionally that goes something like, “Where would you go in the event of a zombie apocalypse?”

After some discussion, we always conclude we’d head straight for Costco. We can’t think of a better hideout. You could survive in that place for YEARS.

"They’ve got everything!” we declare. Food! Furniture! Beds even! To hear us, you’d think we were ready to lock down those industrial doors and set up camp right by the tube socks.

“They’ve even got make-up,” my daughter says. “Who cares if we can’t go outside, we can still look good.”

“And they have books,” I add. “And music and movies. We’d never get bored.”

We bring up the massage chairs, the exercise equipment, barbeques and umbrella tables. We list the soaps and sundries. We imagine setting up storage sheds (everyone gets their own room!) and rolling out the toaster ovens (unlimited samples!).

We go as far as to ponder what we’d do with perishable items. We’d start in on the fruits and salads, but luckily all that meat and seafood can go right into the walk-in freezers.

“Too bad cheese doesn’t freeze well,” I say with a sigh.

“Uh, Mom, it’s okay. You know there’s not really a zombie apocalypse going on, right?”

Right. Back to reality. I could really go for a hunk of brie though.

Pickled Eyeballs and Other Delights

It's November! I hope everyone had a fun Halloween. I've been too busy to think up a new blog post, so I figured I'd put up some pictures of the festivities.

We gathered a large group of trick-or-treaters together, including my brother-in-law from Mexico and his girlfriend, who'd never experienced this ritual. They arrived all decked out and ready to go, and only got a little discouraged when one Halloween Scrooge told them the candy was "just for the kids." We conviced them to jump right back in.

As for my kids' costumes, I noticed a couple of repeat themes this year. Here's a picture of them from last year, as The Joker and Amy Winehouse:

My son decided to stick to the Batman villain thing. This year he was Two-Face. We went with more of a Tommy Lee Jones inspired look, rather than the more recent burn victim Harvey Dent:

The boy has a wild side. I could've gone crazy with the make-up, but do you know how hard it is to get a 12 year old boy to sit still for hair and make-up? Overall when there's a neighborhood overflowing with candy just waiting for him?

For my daughter, however, it's all about the hair and make-up. I think she settled on Cleopatra because it's the only costume that requires EVEN MORE eye make-up than Amy Winehouse.

Here she is, the Queen of the Nile. Or in this case, the queen of the eyeliner.

While I was searching through the craft box for something for Cleopatra's necklace, I found a pack of undecorated plastic masks. They saved my husband and I from being totally costumeless:

What's black and white and ready to be dragged all over?

Here's a picture of the happy trick-or-treating couple from Mexico:

Under that archway, this looks like some bizarre alternative wedding.

We're now the proud owners of that giant double axe prop. For some reason my brother-in-law thinks it wouldn't go over well with airport security. And speaking of props, I have to give my son credit with coming up with this lovely decoration:

Pickled eyeballs.

That's it. On with November. And for those of you participating in NaNoWriMo this month, good luck!

A Little Poem...

...made up entirely of picture book titles I noticed while browsing at the library:

ALLEY CATS

Picture This…
Suddenly!
Tuesday
One Fine Day
Something from Nothing
The Most Precious Thing
One Potato
Skin Again
Landed
Hiding
In the Leaves
Across the Alley
For Me?
How Kind!
Crunch, Munch
Mine!
No Biting, Louise
Bad Cat
I’m Sorry
I Stink
Do You Still Love Me?
You?
Are You For Real?
It’s Simple, Said Simon
Where’s My Hug?
Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck!
You and Me Together
The Most Precious Thing

What I Learned This Summer

The kids spent their first week back in school, but it’s still hot outside. I hope we remember that the beach is still there. It would be nice to enjoy it a couple of more times, especially now that the crowds are gone.

This summer I learned that the first thing you need to do upon arrival at the beach is: (1) use a shovel to draw a giant rectangle in front of your space and (2) throw some sand in it. This is your sandcastle plot. More importantly, it’s what prevents a family of eleven from erecting seven camping chairs (with double cup holders), a playpen and a pup tent right smack in front of you. You don’t even have to finish the sandcastle, but it’s aesthetically more pleasing if you do.

I learned that the more time you spend working on your sandcastle, the more likely it is that a kid will drag a boogie board right through it.

I learned that the arrival of seagulls means it’s twelve o’clock on the dot.

I also learned that you can’t leave a bagel with ham and cheese sandwich unattended on a towel, not even while your son just quickly runs down to the water to rinse the sand off his hands. Not even if it’s still in the plastic bag, and you are sitting right next to it.

I learned that watching a hundred gulls fight for one bite of a ham and cheese bagel is so entertaining, you might be tempted to pack an extra one next time.

I learned a new game. Actually, my daughter and I invented it. We call it Try to Guess Why of ALL the Possibilities, That Person Chose THAT Swimsuit. The name is self-explanatory. I can’t help trying to imagine a person standing in front of that three-way mirror in the dressing room and thinking, yes…THIS is the one! Especially if ‘the one’ is solid orange, and the person is shaped more like a pumpkin than a carrot. I’m no supermodel, but I do know when a little strategic detailing might come in handy.

I learned the same thing happens every summer: no matter how well I try to plan, we never squeeze in enough beach trips before school starts, and everyone gets so busy we almost forget it’s still there.

Tradition

My daughter celebrated her fifteenth birthday last week. After finishing our standard birthday dinner of pepperoni pizza, my husband and I started clearing dishes to make room for cake.

“Oh boy,” my son started, “here’s where Mom and Dad disappear into the kitchen, and we sit here and pretend we have no idea what’s happening.”

It’s possible there is a fine line between a tradition and a rut.

Before her birthday, my daughter told me she wanted to have her friends over to celebrate.

“But I don’t want to do the cake and presents thing with them,” she clarified. “That part should be just family, right?”

I’m not sure which part makes her squirm: all the attention, or allowing her friends to witness her immediate family that up-close-and-personal. Either way, we decided she could invite her friends over for lunch and swimming.

All we needed was a lunch plan. Pizza was out, since we were having that for dinner. I might have been a little distracted when I made the following enthusiastic (and very well received) offer:

“Why don't we make enchiladas?”

What exactly was I thinking? I’ve never made enchiladas in my life. Any recipe that involves shredding a large amount of chicken, followed by all sorts of fussing and assembling, sounds…you know…tedious.

Maybe the idea came to me because several people asked us about a week before her birthday if she planned to have a quinceañera celebration. The truth is, we hadn’t even thought about it. When it was their turn, both my husband’s sisters in Mexico traded the tradition and poofy dress for a trip to Southern California. One of my daughter’s friends just cancelled her plans for the shindig in favor of a shopping spree.

Fifteenth birthday. Formal parties and vacations and shopping sprees. So what did my daughter get?

She got to sit with me at the breakfast nook, and shred a big ol’ bowl of chicken. Think of it as quality mother and daughter bonding time.

I enjoyed it, anyway.

The enchiladas were so good, who knows? Maybe we’ll make it a tradition.

Zombie Mob Scene

Warning: A little fake blood and gore ahead...

A couple of independent filmmakers in our area are making a low budget zombie movie called Tales of a Fifth Grade Zombie Slayer. They plan to submit the short film to film festivals, and hope to develop it into a feature length film. For one scene they needed as many kid zombie extras as they could round up. My two kids and a couple of their friends joined in the fun.

The line to be zombified began forming at 7:00am. The director set up canopies in the back yard, and about half a dozen makeup artists got to work transforming neighborhood children into the pintsized undead. First kids got an airbrushing of a nice ghoulish grey, and from there they progressed to further stages of decomposition.

All this took place on what may have been the hottest day of the summer so far. More than 50 kids turned out for the scene. While they waited, they crowded together in the shade to keep their syrup-based flesh wounds from sliding off in the sun. When filming began six hours later, they were all looking pretty wilted…and probably felt perfectly in character. Fortunately the crew provided snacks and soft drinks to keep the zombies’ spirits up.

Zombie cheers!

Zombie stares...

Zombie knuckle bump.

And watching all those kids waiting around for the big scene brought my favorite image of the day...

Zombie satire: a whole line of zombie children slumped over their video games.

Summer

Things to do:

Spend time with kids
Swim
Bake fruity things
Try to eat enough artichokes to be perfectly sick of them
Go to the beach
Try to leave some sand at the beach
Vacuum sand out of the carpet
And the car
And the closet
And the couch
And the refrigerator
Paint the kids’ rooms
Watch embarrassing reality TV but try to pretend I don't
Grill stuff
Read War and Peace
Or not
Keep plugging away at picture books
Keep trying to habilitate this one:



What’s not high up on my summer to do list? Blogging. I notice things have slowed down in Blogtown, so I’m probably not the only one finding reasons to step away from the computer. I’m going to try to post something once a week or so ‘til September (I can’t stay away from it altogether). I'm sure I'll keep popping in on everyone, too, because...you can only watch so much reality TV. And I'd miss corresponding with everyone.

So, what’s on your to do list for the summer?

Pants on Fire

I was tagged by Rena with this ‘Sinful Nature’ meme:

"Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each sin) and hope they can lie."

Pride -- What is your biggest contribution to the world?
You know those big fat recliners that have everything: cup holder, refrigerator, remote control cubby, massager...essentially everything except a flusher and a toilet paper holder? Totally my idea. That, and the Ped Egg, too.

Envy -- What do your coworkers have that you wish was yours?
When I had coworkers, it was the cubicles I coveted. I could use some tweedy gray walls so I can pin up my timesheet and my Dilbert calendar. And I’d love to have the scent of my neighbor’s Cup o’ Noodles wafting into my workspace.

Gluttony -- What did you eat last night?
Carl’s Junior. I eat it every night because their commercials are so appetizing. Nothing makes me hungrier than watching people eat like jackals.

Lust -- What really lights your fire?
The sight of a cell phone kiosk. Oh, it’s exciting enough just to be in a shopping mall. It's even better when twenty year olds with turned-up collars and gold chains beckon, call me Ma’am, and try to sell me a new phone.

Anger -- What is the last thing that really pissed you off?
At the movies on Father’s Day I spotted a baseball cap that said #1 Dad. I’m kicking myself for not being able to come up with a gift idea that's that original.

Greed -- Name something you hoard and keep from others.
Baked goods. What…wasn’t that the point of The Little Red Hen? I bake it, I eat it. Make your own cookies!

Sloth -- What’s the laziest thing you ever did?
Paint abstracts. Whenever I'm in a gallery, I overhear someone say a monkey can do that. Or a two year old. I guess it must be true then.

Who else wants to search for their inner fibber? I tag:

Stephanie
K
PJ
Keats
Ara
Suzie
Jules

Going Places

I was away for only two days, and somehow it threw my whole week off. Laundry, shopping, end of school year stuff…

I haven’t done anything I planned to do this week, including thinking up blog posts. So I’ll just suggest you go check out a fun game over on The Inconsequential Blogger. She’s traveling to some exotic locations, and posting mystery pictures. Try to guess where she is and leave a comment on her blog. She even hints at a souvenir prize (but only if she finds time to shop).

And, since I'm not nearly jealous enough of everyone's travel plans, feel free to tell me some of the exotic places you've been.

Ballooning Talent

My eleven year old has been learning how to make balloon animals. He’s getting good at it. I wouldn’t try it – I’d get too nervous with all that popping.

He was down to his very last balloon and attempted to learn a new design. I think he ran out of balloon before he could finish it, and instead twisted up his own new design:




He named him Julio.

I think Julio is cool-io.

Do you have any unique or unusual talents?

Dependable, Needs Some Work

My son has a best buddy who is a complete car fanatic. We had him over for supper one night and at some point in the conversation he started rattling off the different car models of he’d collected on some video game. The list went on for so long my son started humming. It sounded just like an acceptance speech at the Oscars that had to be cut short by the orchestra.

Then the conversation turned to what type of car each of us would be if we were a car. We decided my daughter would be a Jaguar. We weren't sure whether my son would be a Porsche or a Mini Cooper. The young friend had no complaints about being dubbed a Rolls Royce.

Then the friend looked over at me, his face scrunched in thought. I was afraid of what was coming. I gave him my most threatening friend’s mom face and told him under no circumstances should he tell me I’m a minivan.

“Hmm,” he said, and thought about it some more. “Could you live with being an SUV or a crossover?”

I laughed. Can’t say it’d be my first choice, but I thought I could live with it. Or at least I thought I should stop him before it got worse.

So, what about it? What kind of car would you be? Or, how would you describe yourself as a car? Sporty, maybe? Sensible? Frame slightly bent?

Just don't ask an eleven year old.

Marzipan Easter Eggs

When my daughter was six, she was diagnosed with an egg allergy that lasted the next five years. Instead of dying eggs for Easter, we made them out of marzipan.

If you’ve never played with marzipan, it’s like play dough you can eat. What could be better than that? Okay, some kids might argue that you can eat the regular kind of play dough, but I’m sure this tastes way better. And our homemade marzipan tastes much better than any commercial type I’ve tried, but maybe I’m a little generous with the sugar and corn syrup.

We didn't stop at eggs. We made other things, too, like little animals…

One year we made a whole vegetable garden out of marzipan. We made cabbages, tomatoes, carrots, watermelon, gooseneck squash…

…believe me, it’s a lot easier to convince kids to eat a marzipan squash than the real thing.

We always made extra and packed them in pretty boxes to give away, too.

If you want to give it a try, here’s the recipe:

½ pound almond paste (it comes canned – I found it at World Market)
½ pound confectioner’s sugar
6 tablespoons light corn syrup

Mix together almond paste and confectioner’s sugar in food processor by pulsing on/off until combined. Add corn syrup and pulse again until thoroughly mixed. Mixture should hold together when pressed. Knead until smooth dough forms.

To color, separate into several Ziploc bags. Add a few drops of desired color to each, and squeeze to mix color (this part is also fun for kids).

Some tips for working with it – a dusting of confectioner’s sugar keeps it from sticking to surfaces. You can press it into candy or Fimo molds, or cut shapes with tiny cookie cutters. Toothpicks are great for drawing details.

Why Don't We Rent Movies Anymore?

Four people enjoying a movie…a perfect way to spend an evening in together, right? Unless…

Two like anything with robots in it; two are unconvinced.

Three like action-adventure; one thinks lots of stuff getting blown up looks the same in every movie.

Two wouldn’t mind seeing a grownup movie once in a while, but two no longer go to bed by 8 pm.

Four still appreciate a good Disney classic; at least two probably don't want to admit it.

Three like the occasional spooky movie; one gets nightmares.

Two never ever tire of Spongebob; two think Spongebob’s appeal wanes after the first hundred showings.

One wouldn’t mind checking out a British drama, three scatter like cockroaches caught in the light at the mere mention of anything Victorian.

At least one is sound asleep on the couch by 9:02 no matter what movie is playing.

One is not quite ready for everything labeled PG-13.

Two enjoy an occasional chick flick; two would rather slice onions with a dull knife than watch anything to do with weddings or shoe shopping.

One thinks he/she is grownup enough to see something; two think he/she is sadly mistaken, and the other one says ha-ha, you don’t get to watch it either.

Two protest but all my friends have seen it; two say, I don’t care what other parents let their kids do, you’re still not watching it.

Four agree that musicals are slightly ridiculous.

This weekend we finally settled on Prince Caspian. Two saw the whole movie, one was sound asleep before the kids even left the train station, and one took a short nap somewhere in Narnia. Not a bad showing, for us anyway.

Hop, Skip, Jump...

I asked my daughter what they’d been up to in PE these days, and I was surprised to hear they were practicing tinikling. I remember learning this dancing game in high school. Half the class sits facing each other in long rows, with each pair holding a pair of bamboo poles. They beat the poles in rhythm two times against the floor, and then once together. The rest of the class hops in a line between the moving poles. If you miss a beat, the poles snap shut around your ankles.

Maybe to avoid the punishment of bruised shins, now they use elastic bands. That reminds me of another elastic-around-the-ankles game we played when I was little - Chinese jump rope. I haven’t seen anyone playing that since I was a kid. I tried to teach it to my own kids when they were little, but I don’t think they were impressed. It looks like a giant game of cat’s cradle with a lot of skipping. As I recall, it was pretty easy to get all tangled up and land face first. Or maybe that was just me. I’m a klutz.

Now that I think of it, I hardly ever see kids playing regular old jump rope anymore. Once in a while I’ll hear of jump ropes being dragged out for a charity jump-a-thon, but that’s about it. Some years ago I got appalled by the lack of playground equipment at my kids’ school. I went to Home Depot and purchased a bunch of rope and made a whole bag of jump ropes. I made short ones for individual jumping, and long ones for group jumping. I tied the ends into loops and tightened them with zip ties. They were very cool.

They were a big hit, too. But it was short lived. I don’t know what happened to them the following year, but they disappeared. Maybe they were lost, or maybe they were taken away when the kids started whacking each other with them. Who knows?

I know kids still play hide-and-seek. And red rover. How about red light, green light? Or Mother, may I? What were your favorite playground games when you were little? What do kids play on the playground where you live?

If you want to see a fun tinikling demonstration, click here.