Claire: You know, some questions you expect to have to explain to your kids and some you don’t.
Rich: What do you mean?
Claire: Julia just asked how the sun tinkled.
Rich: What did you tell her?
Claire: It was the rain.
Rich: Gross.
Sweet
Julia: Am I sweeter than Weston?
Claire: You, Weston, and Conrad are the absolute sweetest.
Julia: But I want to be sweeter than I already am.
Claire: How can you be sweeter than you already are?
Julia: By eating cupcakes.
Rich…ard and Beautiful
When someone heard the name of our blog, she was apparently shocked at my arrogance. In the future, if someone gets the wrong idea, I think I’ll give my best impersonation of Aldolpho from The Drowsy Chaperone and say, “Whhhaaaaat? You do not agreeeeee?”
Along those lines…because the site is Rich and Beautiful and Google ads are based on content, apparently you, readers of this blog, are interested in finding a rich husband, meeting rich people, ordering a Russian bride (I do like calling Claire my Russian bride), and chic doggy clothes (from the “Doggy Duty” post, I’m guessing).
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A random YouTube video making fun of Microsoft.
Survival of the Feistiest
Maybe it’s because the third child has to fight for everything, but there is nothing passive about Conrad. We are extremely careful when feeding him with a fork due to his tendency to lunge forward like a snapping turtle in order to catch his pea mush unawares.
After watching some videos on YouTube, we noticed other similarities: Conrad moves around with his mouth wide open waiting to be fed just like this alligator snapping turtle.
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I really, really, really want one of these.
In other news, Conrad is starting to walk from point A to point B, assuming point A and point B are sitting pretty close together.
Take me out to the ball game
Last summer, 2006 BC (Before Conrad), we decided to take Weston and Julia to a Mets game. As is part of the ritual, we got a couple hot dogs and drinks. Because Weston’s reflexes were a little unpredictable, we should have expected something like this would happen. He picks up the hot dog which is covered in ketchup and hurls it. He scores a bullseye on the kid in front of us, and, just like in the movies, it sticks to the back of his shirt and slowly slides down it. To make things worse, the poor kid was there with his buddy and both of them were decked out in Mets gear. It wouldn’t surprise me if the jersey was autographed.
What do you do?
We both apologized of course and, as only a mother could do, Claire offers the poor kid a wet wipe. He declined. We tried to look the other way and pretend the whole thing never happened. When we finally gathered the courage to look forward again, we noticed that the two wise fellows had casually gotten up and moved to the empty seats at the far end of the row.
I bet they were still within range — Weston has a good arm.
Bloody Cool
Just when I was wondering what I was going to write about this week, cousin Michael comes over wanting to show us a “bloody cool” something or other he was worried wouldn’t last long enough to wait. Upon seeing his body art, I had to agree…it’s pretty bloody cool.
bloody cool: [bluhd-ee kool] -adjective
something with a skull, a snake, at least one guitar, and flames.
i“Oh, You’re a Shredder?”
Claire and I were riding the gondola to the top of Snowbasin with two other people. They asked if we were brother and sister. Claire said yes, then turned and gave me a big kiss…
Just kidding…
Here’s what really happened. When we confessed that we were dating, they looked at my snowboard and at Claire’s skis and said they rode in the gondola earlier with Claire’s dad. Before we could really wonder what gave them that idea, they explained, “He said his daughter is dating a snowboarder and that he’s trying not to hold it against him.”
I told them I was dating the daughter of a PC user and I was trying not to hold it against him.
Just kidding…
My first snowboard, a Burton Woody 145, which I bought from David Garcia for $40.
Doggy Duty
Recently Julia and Weston have been requesting Beauty and the Beast retold by Jan Brett as their bedtime story. Reading the story the first time, I noticed the following lines:
A troop of monkeys all in court dress appeared to serve her. A charming little dog did duty as her page. In fact, animals of all sorts took the place of gardener, cook, and gamesman.
Never passing up an opportunity for potty humor, I joked about the little dog’s doody.
The kids know the stories so well, it’s fun to tease them with little changes. So, when I read Beauty and the Beast the following night, I said something about the monkey doing duty. Julia interrupted me and said, “No, it was the little doggie that did the doody!” Claire and I both started laughing, which of course triggered something in Julia that made her run around the condo repeating, “The little doggie did the doody! The little doggie did the doody!”
Going Up the Country
Based on a road trip to Seattle ten years ago, I haven’t been able to stop talking about the Pacific Northwest. Claire had never been, so we thought we’d borrow my mom’s hybrid (because of which we fit right in…one out of every three cars we saw was a Prius…that’s not a real statistic, but you get the point.), leave the kids and all responsibilities behind, and take a trip. Our main destinations were Portland, Astoria (where The Goonies was filmed), Port Townsend, and Seattle. We grabbed some reading material, The Golden Compass and Freddy and Fredericka (both of which we highly recommend), filled up the twelve-gallon tank and were off. We neglected to grab the road-trip theme song, Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country,” which was the only way in which our trip was lacking. I made up for it by singing The Goonies theme song. Claire joined in on occasion.
Somewhere along the way we started noticing and making fun of street signs. In some parts of Oregon, they have a $97 fine for not wearing your seat belt. We couldn’t figure out why they didn’t make it an even $100. In other parts, the fine is $94. In Washington, it’s $101. OK, that’s not too funny now that I think about it. Anyway, all the driving was part of the fun.
We met an interesting character in Portland. While Claire was driving, I googled “Portland falafel” and a place called Fat Kitty Falafel came up. We finally found the place. It was a little falafel stand, owned by a fluffy fellow who hung out with his headphones on. He was from New York and the guy was sure talkative….The falafel wasn’t bad either.
On the way home, we realized our time alone was drawing to a close and stopped in Yakima, Washington for dinner and a movie. The movie: Oceans 13 (which we really enjoyed, by the way). After the movie, we noticed a girl with two kids in the parking lot who was obviously very distressed…something with her boyfriend, with whom she lives, who is the father of the two kids, and who, it turns out, has not been entirely faithful. We offered to help…even pay for a motel. All she wanted, however, was to borrow our phone. Claire did not bring hers, so our phone meant my phone. She wanted to use my phone, which would certainly mean touching my phone, which would certainly mean smudgies. It was easy to see that I was being tested — what is more important, your phone or another human being? Well, if only by a mere fraction, I passed the test. I handed her the phone and looked away. I was expecting a reassuring look from Claire confirming that I had done the right thing and that she was proud of me. Instead, she just looked really worried. The girl got her boyfriend’s voicemail, left a nasty message, and gave me back iPhone unharmed. We don’t know what happened, but she finally decided to drive home. We can only hope she was able to calm down and figure things out.
The Northwest is truly beautiful. I wasn’t a bit disappointed. If you ever plan such a trip, be sure to include Seaside, Oregon. Special thanks to Mom for the use of her car and to Claire’s mom and Shauna for watching the kids.
The Goonies house in Astoria, Oregon.
HM Stribog IV is calling
This is the photo of my brother that pops up on my phone when he calls. Sorry, Tom…couldn’t resist.