Jonners' Canterbury Tales » Weekly Be

Ways to Cheer up a Grumpy Boy

jonners99 — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 19:26:47 +0000

(A guide for Girlfriends, though useful for Mothers and Sisters as well)
When your boy is pouting over his computer and giving monosyllabic responses to questions, you know he’s gotten himself into a mood. The best way to cure this ailment (painful as it is for both your boy and you) is to either distract or feed him. Here are some practical ways you can turn your boy’s frowns and furrowed brows into grins and giggles:
- Feed him pies, curries, cheesecake and diet coke
- Make silly cooing noises at him, including “hmmmm,” “ooooh” and “neem neem neem.”
- Talk about the big house he’ll have when he grows up and gets rich. Get him to talk about its racetrack and library and cinema.
- Do a mad lib and make him laugh.
- Give him something obscure to google.
- Get him to talk about a film, especially one he doesn’t like. Grumpiness easily turns to annoyance, and when directed at something it can’t harm, like a film, usually evaporates.
- take him out for a walk. To quote an annoying film, “exercise produces endorphins, and endorphins make people happy.”
- tell him you have a secret, or a present, and he can’t know what it is. Proceed to give him hints and clues.
- be more mopey and capricious than him and call on him to cheer YOU up.

Weekly Be on Plane Travel

jonners99 — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:04:28 +0000

What to do while sitting seven hours in a seat that reclines two inches while your knees knock against a seat two inches from your stomach and vile cheerful people chuck vile steaming plates of mush and a grape at you:

- Read Tsotsi and Breakfast at Tiffany’s in their entirety and write film reviews (or think about writing film reviews… or write one and think about the other).

- Discover your ipod has four games, none of which you can beat past the level one.

- Glance furtively at the cooking magazine the French guy next to you is reading. Hope he isn’t doing the same to you, as your diary is open on your lap.

- Miss the beginning of King Kong, miss your favourite part of Hoodwinked, and see the end of a film you’ve been meaning to watch, but in the proper suspenseful order.

- Hope neither the French guy or the fat old dude try to talk to you, as it is awkward to strike up conversation, run out of things to say, and be unable to wander away for the next six and a half hours.

- Forget ipod is on repeat so you’ve just listened to the same song 17 times and lost level one 17 times.

- Take the battery out of your phone so you don’t. in a fit of boredom, call someone you love and cause the radar to stutter and thereby send yourself, the French guy, the fat old guy, and the vile cheerful people spinning into the Atlantic in a fiery conflagration.

- Make up your own word search, and then ponder the lameness of solving it yourself.

- Get blurry eyes and a headache from lack of sleep, a constant whirring grumble, reading a whole book in one go, and being homesick for two countries at once.

When Lying’s Allowed

jonners99 — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 12:56:29 +0000

It’s acceptable to lie when your Great Aunt Mabellina comes to church one day with a new hat.

Now, you don’t mind all of Aunt Mabel’s hats – some match her bright pink dress or look seasonal with fresh flowers, but today she supports one of her more… exotic hats. At one glace you find this new hat better than the lime green mushroom she wore to church last Sunday, but worse than the leopard print bucket she always wears the week of her birthday. At least you know when that one approaches and can brace your self with gritted teeth and a plastered smile for it. Today, however, her hat adds about three feet to her height (and she’s already got the purple stiletto heels on) by way of round wideness and a great swath of lavender gauze draped decoratively across one expanse of purple brim.

“How do you like my new hat?” Aunt Mabel simpers upon seeing you. She places on hand coquettishly on her hip (and seventy-two year old women should not act coquettish) and flaunts her latest statement. She poses for a few moments while your brain pops a gasket at the sight and then tries to fuse itself into something able to respond coherently. All around you the church is filling with people who cast speculative glances at the purple creation. Behind you your mother stabs her finger into your back, reminding you Aunt Mabel wants a reply, and preferably, a positive one.

This is where you have to lie.

“Aunt Mabel!” You cry rapturously, widening your eyes. “You look stupendous! I’ve never seen anything like it!” Ok, perhaps the second part of this confession is not, in fact, a lie, but your gushing enthusiasm certainly is. In any case, anything’s better than that nadir of ugly hats she wore last Thanksgiving, the wintry brown felt cap with an entire stuffed duck pinned atop. Whoever designed that, you felt, ought to be shot, stuffed and pinned onto his own hat.

“You’re a doll,” Mabel squeaks, and unfolds a twenty dollar bill from her purple handbag, pressing it into your hand, giving you a toothy grin. She saunters away, her new hat swaying precariously down the aisle. She seats herself in the front pew where no one will be able to see the preacher because everyone will be able to see her hat.

You tuck the twenty into your pocket and sigh in relief. That’s when it’s acceptable to lie.

Toothpaste

jonners99 — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:26:49 +0000

I’m good at disciplining my time… in the afternoons. But of all the times of day I hate afternoons most. Something about the way the light slants through the window until about five and the anticipation of a fun evening makes afternoons the longest, dreariest, most lonely parts of the day. So I keep myself busy with schoolwork.
After a long day of homework and into an evening without any plans to go out, I fall into a fit of spontaneity. Previous products of such an attitude have lead to research into flash animation, bursts of yoga, experiments with various food products smeared with fluff (American marshmallow paste), stealthy late-night walks around Froebel College, and Garden-State-esque shouting out the window. I also have discovered I find myself fifth down on a Google search of my name. First is a Norwegian model with my an s where I have a z and slightly larger measurement than me.
Yesterday was one such fateful day. After munching my way through a peanut butter n’ fluff sandwich and some silly online crush quizzes I got to thinking about toothpaste. I’ve nothing against mint, the plant (which spurts in abundance in our garden to the frustration of my hedge-trimmer wielding mother) or the ice cream flavor. But in toothpaste, the taste bothers me.
In fact, it repulses me. I hate brushing my teeth. As a child I would shut myself in the bathroom and turn the sink on at intervals to make it sound as if I were brushing my teeth and then hide my teeth when my mother asked if I’d brushed them. More recently certain brands of American toothpaste have put out vanilla and orange flavors, which I have tried and also hated.
Last night, I thought, what did they do before toothpaste was invented? (Other than have wooden teeth or just no teeth). I remembered something from a history book informing me pioneers on wagon trains cleansed their teeth with baking powder. In the spirit of research and education I Googled “homemade toothpaste recipes” and found a seemingly delightful concoction of baking powder, salt, lemon peel and strawberries. Having all the necessary ingredients (except lemon peel), I brewed my own toothpaste
After much mashing and stirring and wondering if my toothbrush would make it through the ordeal alive, I smudged the toothpaste onto my teeth. And now I’ll mimic Aesop (who didn’t have Colgate, Crest, Arm-and-Hammer, Listerine or any other whitening, brightening and gum-disease-known-as-gingivitis reducing paste) and give the moral of the story:
Dentist-approved toothpaste or wooden teeth are better than anything that mixes salt and strawberries. On the bright side, my teeth were very white, my toothbrush only has one glob of strawberry pulp still stuck to it, and I may now inform you of the infinite knowledge of Google on the subject of all things toothpaste.
Come to think of it, maybe the lemon peel would have made all the difference.

Why I’m Carrying A Spatula This Morning

jonners99 — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 09:06:22 +0000

The thing about bats and sharks and other things that frighten people is the person’s lack of knowledge about the creature. I’ve never been stung by a bee, and throughout my childhood I heard horror stories from friends about their bee stings. One friend was stung three times and she’s deathly allergic and had to go to the hospital. My sister stepped on a bee when she was too little to understand stingers. She screamed and fell into the grass and wailed with all the lung capacity of a three-year-old high-altitude baby. I can only assume from these reactions the experience is unpleasant, possibly painful.
Last summer my task was to paint the house, inside and out (don’t ask about the pink basement – I’m too ashamed to speak of it). While brushing an ever-so-slightly darker shade of tan over the tan eaves at the back of the garage a hornet zipped past my left eye, causing me to nearly topple off the ladder into the mint bushes below. After smearing a darker shade of tan across my jeans and righting myself on the ladder, I peeped over the roof and gasped in shock. Under a loose roof tile several hornets crawled in and out of a dark, nesty hole. I clattered down the ladder and into the garage. I snatched a can of Raid insecticide meant especially for “wasps, hornets and bees,” donned a hat, rolled down my sleeves and pulled a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. The battle began as I mounted the ladder again, aerosol can in one hand, paintbrush in the other.
I used up the whole can of Raid and every ounce of my courage in destroying that nest, the one under the shed, and the two others I found above the front door. All that remained were a pair of paint splattered jeans (evidence of my jitteriness), the shrivelled bodies of four colonies of hornets (evidence of my victory), and my now unshakeable fear of things buzzing toward my face.
Last night as I stood placidly at the Lee House kitchen sink I heard an all-too familiar and menacing drone behind me. I spun around, sending droplets of water spinning across the floor. Caught in the pile of tinsel left from negligence to put away Christmas decorations was the largest bumblebee I have ever seen. It had a wingspan the length of my pinkie, and its black furry body trembled as it bounced angrily against the window. It twitched tarantula-like legs on the glass in its attempt to break back into the sunlight outside. The worst part was its visible stinger, a brown needle worthy of the respect and fear of children (and nineteen-year-olds) everywhere.
The sponge I held dropped to the counter with a splat of soap and water as I scampered out of the room and shut the door behind me. In the hall I met Jess and gasped out the terrible sight within the kitchen. She gave me the advice mothers have told panicky children since the first bee stung Cain and he went crying to Eve:
“If you leave it alone, it will leave you alone.”
I didn’t believe this for a minute – I kept the kitchen door shut lest the bumblebee fly into the hall, into my bedroom, lose itself among the furniture and come crawling all over me with its germs and pollen and intent to stab while I slept. Perhaps it would find its way back out the open window. Perhaps it would die in the tinsel.
None of these imaginings came true. This morning I crept into the kitchen for breakfast and found the bee alive and buzzing, still crawling through the tinsel and bumbling into the window. I couldn’t bring myself to even boil a kettle of tea, for soon the bee had found its way onto the floor and was crawling closer and closer. I snatched a granola bar for sustenance and a spatula for defence and scrambled out of the room again, hoping by the time I return for lunch the monster will give up and die before I do.