A NIght Time conversation

Happy 2021 everyone! THAT is an ORDER!!!

 

This morning at about 1 am, I paged through my most recent journal. Wow! For all the staying home and all the "I didn't do much" opening sentences, I, and I really mean we - Hub, D, and Little Blue Bunny, et al, and I - did a huge bunch of stuff.

I had forgotten about the night time reading sessions with the stuffies and the conversations we sometimes had in the dark. But this conversation made it into my journal. I had stopped reading to the stuffies for awhile. LBB noticed. After we talked, I turned on the light, grabbed a pencil and I wrote it down as best as I could remember.

Here it is with a tiny bit of editing...

Sept. 21, 2020

LBB: You don't talk to us anymore.

Me: I know.

 

 (Actual journal entry above.)

LBB: It's like you forgot all about us.

Me: I could never forget all about you...It's just I worry about  grown-up things.

LBB: Want to talk about it?

ME:  It just feels like this whole year, we are just waiting, waiting for things to get better.

LBB: Are things getting better?

Me: No. We started waiting for all this waiting to feel normal.

LBB: Ha! Hahaha! Normal?

Me: I can hardly remember going to Meeting for Worship, or going to the library or stores or to parties with friends. It almost feels like we never did those things.

LBB: I know you went on ships because you never took me.

Me: You would have jumped overboard.

LBB: Not!

Me:

LBB:

Me: I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to talk about Wizard World.

LBB: Ahhh! Yes!

Me: Yes! Wizard World where a shy quiet Wizardy Wizard made a wing kite to fly her friends into a magic land.

LBB: .. and Little Blue Wizard thought that dancing princesses should be turned into flowers.

Me: I remember that! How about the time that Prince Philip,  I think, was turned into a platypus by his own brother?

LBB: Did I save the day?

Me: You and Wizardy Wizard.

LBB: We both did.

Me: Hmmm. Now I remember. You had new magic because you flew to Australia.

LBB: I did. Queen Apple Tree took my Wizard World magic away because of the whole princesses into flowers thing. Then I got new magic when I flew to Australia.

Me: You know, I wrote a lot of this down back then. I just have to find those journals.

LBB: I would like to read that someday - to refresh my memory.

Me: Me, too.

LBB: Nana?

Me: Hmmm?

LBB: Do you feel all worried now?

Me: Not so much. Thank you, Little Blue Bunny. You are a good friend.

LBB: Thanks, Nana. Go to sleep.

I wish magic lands to you all - wherever you find them - and good friends to drag along on your adventures.  2021 will be full of wonders. Look forward with courage and hope.

There's a bunny in that manger!

                                            

 

 

Little Blue Bunny in the New Year

We take Dee to her music lessons these days.  She still wants me to sit in the back with her while Gramps drives.  Good thing, too.  I mean sitting in back...

Dee takes piano lessons at the store that Daddy taught at for years.  This is NOT Dee.

ANYWAY, we have a new technology, Dee, LBB, his family and I.  It is the palm phone.  We can call and message people in our network on the palms of our hands.  We have visual contact, too.  But more exciting than all this, we can reach through the "palmscreen" and touch what we see. We call that Touchtime!

Here is how these communications work.  Dee calls LBB - or vice versa - and they turn on visuals.   Then, Dee says, "What's that on the carpet?" or "What is that big shape behind you?"

Then, I have to make up a story about something on the carpet or what the shape is.

Touchtime was created when I assured Dee that the dragon that looked like it was going to eat Little Blue Bunny was just a cardboard cutout. She punched my palm and - zoop!- she was able to reach into our dining room and touch the dragon's scales. Touchtime!

These conversations take the entire 15 to 20 minute ride to the music store. Yesterday's call was an awesome exercise in imagination and adventure.

Here's Lila and the phone she got for Toy Christmas.  Keep reading.

When we called LBB, we were surprised that the number that came up was his big sister's phone.  Little Blue Bunny explained that Lila lost phone privileges when:
1. She didn't notice that Snow, their little bunny sister, took the new twins, Chester and Pinella, out of their crib.
2.  Snow dragged the twins around the house on a blanket.
3.  Snow knocked down their mother's easel, almost hitting Chester.

So cute! Snow (in the middle) with Chester (left) and Pinella (right).

Needless to say, when Nutsa (Mom) heard the easel crash, she ran in to find Lila on the phone.  The phone was confiscated.

Lila had a problem.  How could she let people know that she lost phone privileges and wasn't just ignoring them?

Enter LBB.  Lila offered LBB money to answer her phone.

AND as soon as LBB got his sister's phone, he diverted all calls from HIS phone to HER phone.

Well, that was quite a story but when we went to visuals we could not believe what we imagined we saw.

This is an earlier experiment with makeup.  We didn't get photos this time.

LBB's face was covered with brown stuff and his ears were rolled up so they looked like little nubs on his head.

"What if one of Lila's friends wants to Facetime?" LBB asked.

"What if?"  I told him.  "You are not supposed to  BE Lila.  You are just letting her friends know she can't use her phone."

"Oh", LBB seemed a bit upset. "I didn't think of that."

"Nana!" Dee pointed at my palm.  "What's that stuff on the table?"

"Well?"  We waited for LBB to explain.

His explanation was in-cred-i-ble.  You see...the makeup he used did not stay on his face.  So he decided to make slime.  Yep. Slime.  He tried a bunch of colors, too.  Pink, orange, green - GREEN? -

"Making slime is so much fun!"  Little Blue Bunny laughed.

We told him to clean himself up.  So he scampered off to the powder room.

At this point, Dee used HER palm phone to call Nutsa and Nutsa - who was busy with the babies - had to come into the kitchen to find that LBB spilled slime EVERYWHERE.  There were tiny slimey footprints on the floor into the dining room - ON THE RUG.  Slime poured down the sides of the counter onto the cabinets.  Dee had a hard time coming up with just the right word.  Not dripping, not pouring, ROARING - like a waterfall.

Nutsa was HORRIFIED. LBB had used up all my brand new clear school glue.

By this time, we reached the music store.

When we called LBB back after Dee's lesson - which went very well, by the way  - that's when we saw the slime cascading over the sides of the counter. (Now, why didn't we think of that word yesterday?) LBB promised that he would buy me more glue.  Nutsa took away the money his sister paid him for answering her phone.

"You are her brother."  Nutsa scolded.  "You should do things like that as a favor.  I am ashamed of you for taking money."

So, here is the breakdown of consequences:
A. Nutsa was NOT upset with Lila or LBB for letting LBB answer Lila's phone.  Nutsa understands that communications are very important to teens and it is only polite to let people know why you are not answering their texts.

B. Nutsa WAS angry that money changed hands.  Family should help family.  Also, if Lila had asked her, Nutsa would have put an automatic reply on Lila's phone.

C. Nutsa WAS FURIOUS with Little Blue Bunny's make-up/slime escapade.  She promised that everything would be spic and span when I got home.

D. Nutsa WAS very angry with Lila fro neglecting her Big Sisterly babysitting duties.  Lila might not get her phone back for awhile.

E. Snow got time out.  But she's just a preschooler and very excited not to be the youngest anymore, so, her Mom went easy on her.

The trip from Dee's house to our house only takes about 10 minutes.  Believe it or not, our house looked just fine when we got home.  AND somehow or other, LBB managed to replace my clear school glue, too.

This post reminds me that I haven't told you all the fun stuff that happened this Fall - stuff like..
1. Nutsa's gender reveal party when we found out she was having TWINS!!!
2.  Our making the twins out of pink, yellow and blue pompoms and scraps of fake fur.  They are so cute.
3. The delivery!
4.  Little Blue Bunny's very close brush with matrimony to a LEOPARD.

It was THAT close.

Fodder for another post or two or three.

PS:  I want to assure you that I do NOT come up with ideas like "gender reveal parties" and "matrimony".  All those ideas come from Dee's amazing imagination.

The Glass Town Game

The nice Riveted rep that sent me a box of ARCs (for the KUCLC event about a month ago) referred to Catherynne M. Valente's The Glass Town Game as a brick.  It is that - over 500 pages.  But, oh, what a brick it is!

When Emily and Charlotte Bronte are sent back to Cowan Bridge school, the boarding school where their older sisters died, their brother, Branwell, and youngest sister, Anne, walk them to the train station.  It is the Beastliest of Days and they play one of their favorite games on the way, the Game of And.  Not as complicated as the Glass Town Game which employed all of Branwell's wooden soldiers, the Game of And was played by imagining the most delightful or nonsensical things and challenging the other players to match or top them.

When they get to the station, the things they imagined on the way, and things they imagined in the past, have become real!  All four children board the train, using buttons as tickets, and ride to Glass Town with the wooden soldiers, come alive.  Glass Town is at war.  The forces of Wellie (the Duke of Wellington) and Boney (Napoleon Bonaparte) fight and die and come to life again. 

When Anne and Branwell are stolen away by one of Boney's spies - made of magazines and newspapers - Emily and Charlotte must find them.  Meanwhile, Anne and Branwell find the kidnapped Princess Victoria, the cause of this awful war.

At first, everything they see comes from one of their play adventures. As the story progresses, the adventures spin out of control.  The four wonder if they will ever be reunited and if they will ever see their father and home again.

As I read, I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,  and The Wizard of Oz.  Each town in Glass Town has peculiarities and a specific type of resident.  The publishers and book sellers in Ochropolis deliver some of the funniest dialogue in the book.  Valente uses fanciful descriptions and eccentric language that adds a sense of time and place.  I can't wait to see the book when it comes out in September.  I hope for illustration - just a few - that are as whimsical as the story is.

I am giving this book away (with others).    Click here to learn more about this giveaway.   And to enter.

Today, I realized something. Books are the original "Second Life". When I am reading a good book, I am taken out of my own skin into the experiences of the character. I see vividly the landscape of that new land and I feel the emotions. A good author can bring me to tears, make me laugh out loud, have me squirming in my seat. A good story can do that without computer graphics and Linden dollars.

When I was younger, an appealing character and a good story never ended with the close of the book. My imagination took over and created new characters and scenarios over which I had total control. I even played games based on favorite books with my friends and siblings - real games with real dirt and real hazards and real fun. But these games were of our own making and they had little to do with our everyday real lives.

Think of Tom Sawyer playing Robin Hood in his long underwear in the woods around Hannibal, Missouri. Children have been playing with the people they meet in books as long as books that appeal to children have been around. I'm sure us older people create fantasies around our favorite characters though not as often as when we were young. It is hard to say goodbye to someone who has inhabited your brain for several hours.

Online worlds offer a chance to create your own story, be someone else for awhile. They have the element of chance that comes from interacting with characters over whom you have little control. There is the excitement of visual and aural stimulation and endless choices.

All that said, I prefer books. A quiet corner in the sunlight, a well-written paperback in my hand and I can enter a "second life" where everything is a surprise and all I have to do is let the story unfurl in my mind's eye.