It's All Downhill From Here...

Today, not only did I turn 40, but I found my very first grey eyebrow hair! I'm pretty sure this means my wizard powers should be coming in shortly. I tried to capture it on film (you know, in case the wizarding guild gave me any trouble), but it turns out the individual hair color isn't really discernible. So all I got was this gratuitous, slightly creepy picture of my 40 year old eyeballs. You're welcome.

Soundbites

Emile has been out of town most of this month starting his new job at eBay. I just found out his title is "Lead Cloud Developer." He assures me that his work days are not as awesome as they sound.

Larkin, Finn and I are puttering along smoothly, doing all the usual Stuff of Life, looking forward to Emile coming home. Larkin and Emile have been playing chess online almost every evening. Skype is keen.

******

Me: If you guys are happy doing your own thing for a while, I'd like to have some time to myself to do more adult things.

Finn: Okay.

Larkin: What are you going to do?

Me: ... watch a comic book movie.

 ******

I had been making food accompanied by loud music when I realized the house had been very quiet and I hadn't seen Finn in a long time. I found him spread-eagled on the living room floor.

Me: ... What's up?

Finn: I'm full of bourbon and I can't stand up.

Me: No more Tom Waits for you.

State Of The Union

We just downloaded a charades-style app that shows your teammates something to act out while you hold the tablet facing them. Larkin was telling us about one of her favorite you-tubers, Rosanna Pansino, who had played a similar game on her show Nerdy Nummies. In her version, you were supposed to hum a song as assigned by your device. Larkin was pleased to report that she would have been able to guess several Beatles songs and "We Will Rock You", and mentioned that one she remembered that she never would have known was the "Star Spangled Banger."

After much hilarity, Emile and I disclosed that the "Star Spangled BANNER" was, in fact, our national anthem and that was why we were so amused that she had no clue what it sounded like. Yeah, not a lot of sports in our lives. The second definition of patriotic in one week was called for.

Eventually, our giggling-choked explanations stopped long enough for Larkin to ask, "was it funny because I didn't know it was our natural anthem or because I got the name wrong?" Aaaaahahahaha!

Clearly there was a gap in her education here. So we paged through our substantial music collection, expecting to find an inspirational rendition to play for her, but all we came up with was Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock performance.

Our jobs here are done.

Halloween

This year, we had a Luigi (of Super Mario fame) and a Toph (from Avatar: The Last Airbender).

We had a pre-Halloween potluck with our local unschoolers group and made these amazingly revolting looking witch fingers (inspired by a dinner prepared by friend Shallon a few years ago):

They're actually just breadsticks, colored with food coloring, with almond fingernails. We served them with a bloody (marinara) dipping sauce. They were so vile looking that several kids needed to be persuaded to try them, but once the initial revulsion was overcome they disappeared quickly.

We joined up with some friends for trick or treating (you'll notice that Mario and Princess Peach complete the Nintendo theme) in Talent:

Then retreated to our place for what is (so far, and somewhat predictably) a very high energy sleepover.