The End

This blog has served its purpose, whatever that was. After taking into considerations the opinions of my siblings, who dislike me talking about them online, I have decided it is time to stop. I suppose what finally pushed me over the edge on this one was when we were talking about my blog two nights ago during evening family time. While talking about the different advantages between dating and courting (don't comment) Grandma asked me if I supported courting, how come I blogged. When I asked her what she meant, she said they didn't seem like they belong in the same culture. I sort of see her point: Blogging is quite undignified. The siblings treat my blog like some sort of gossip rag.

So I'm putting down my pen. This is the final post. Au Revoir. C'est la vie. Adios Amigos! And all that lovely french stuff.

Slippers

You know, I've never had slippers before. Until yesterday, of course. After Mom had detailed the plight of my poor feet and their beloved chillblains, Grandma went shopping the next morning. When she got home she dropped a pair of slippers at my feet and told me to put them on. The good thing about my slippers is that they keep my feet warm and make me feel comfortable. The bad thing about them is that shuffling around my house to make sure my slippers don't fall off makes me feel like an old man. I guess I'll just have to deal with it. It's better than losing circulation in my feet.

Trapped

It is just as well that we didn't have Random Fun last Friday. If we had, it would probably have resulted in our friends becoming trapped by the snow. The road in our neighborhood was completely iced within a few hours. We couldn't even get to Wal-Mart. Our out-of-town relatives were planning to arrive Friday and leave Sunday. They left this morning. Not only that, but the roads in Jacksonville (a dinky little town they have to pass through) are closed so they have to go down to Atlanta and then up to Raleigh to get home. Alas for circuitous routes. Now we are just praying that they don't get trapped in Atlanta.

Luck of the Devil

When we were on the family reunion the powers that be decided that all the kids would make a movie. Heather wrote a script for it, which had such a lame premise that every boy in the cast quit. Heather quit right after that and told us to make our own movie. So it was down to Kaitlin, Anna, Grace, and Kathryn. They wrote a script for a murder mystery. It wasn't a murder mystery like Murder She Wrote or Hercule Poirot or anything. It was more like Nancy Drew or some little kid mystery book or something. The plot was really convoluted and stuff. Anyways, I played the dangerous psychopathic person who errantly believed he had murdered his sister because his aunt told him so.

By the way, parents, I know that if any of these girls actually discovered a dangerous psychopath had murdered his own sister, they wouldn't confront him about it. They would know to contact a reasonable adult.

Anyway, all the filming was done in the three hours before it was supposed to be shown to the parents. It was really rushed. In fact, they got home while we were still editing it. We needed to save it to a CD, which took 30 minutes but we needed to show the parents the movie. What did we do to keep them from taking their children home to bed since it was after 10:00?

Well, here's where the luck of the devil factors in. Grandad and Grandma had this brilliant idea to create a three-hour slideshow presentation chronicling Grandma's entire life through pictures. Some of those pictures could qualify as antiques. So while the entire family sat through a presentation that I had already seen twice, I was downstairs poking Andrew and trying to make him make the computer save faster. (Not really. That was a joke. I was just down there glaring at the computer screen as it saved sloooooooooooooooooowly.)

In the end it all worked out. I'm still waiting to see if I live happily ever after, though.

Stars in My Eyes

Today I was daydreaming. Yes, I daydream. I was thinking to myself "Hm. If Obama enacts universal health care, what could I do? Well, it will chase doctors out of the markets, so I would be more secure in my job, and if it gets competitive, I'm sure I'm smart enough to survive. And if it turns into a who-you-know instead of what-you-know system, I'm so affable that I could certainly survive. In fact, I think I could thrive under this system if I stay on the cutting edge of teleradiology, and if I'm one of the few radiologists in America and stay cheap enough to compete with job exportations to countries that will soon be more free and capitalist than America, then I could live anywhere I want as all my business comes to me digitally. Anyway, if Rathke succeeds in globalizing ACORN then he could crash the entire global economy and I won't even have to worry about-"
"Hey," Grandma said, causing me to realize that I had just been talking to her. "Where are you?"
"In the future," I replied. Hey. Am I always this stupid or was I just half-asleep? That's a pretty poor response.
"Oh? And what are you thinking about?"
"Universal health care," I said, honestly.
"You were not," Grandma replied indignantly. I was slightly taken aback.
"No, that was honestly it."
"Well," Grandma said, "You don't have to tell me what you were thinking about." Then she gave me the look, so I knew what she was thinking. The only other time she uses that look is when she asks Heather about Douglas.
"No Grandma, that was really it."
"Well, I was just thinking, you had such a contented expression on your face, I figured you were thinking about having a wife and kids and a house." Seriously. I bet you often wonder what your grandparents think you are thinking. Now you know that you don't want to know.
So apparently, I get a dopey look on my face when I think about exploiting my country. Am I... stupid?

Watermelon That Hath Strayed from the Path of God

Grandma bought me another watermelon. (This is about the tenth one. Yummy.) Anyways, before I woke up Grandma cut it in half so she could feed it to me for breakfast. But then, ARGH! It turned out the inside was yellow. OH NO! So we tried to figure it out. Could it be too ripe? Not ripe enough? Rotten? Was it bearing no seeds when Jesus walked by it so he withered it? Whatever it was, we figured it wasn't good so Grandma returned it. When Grandma got her money from the clerk, the clerk said "Oh, yellow watermelon are bred that way. They're tastier than other watermelon."
"Yeah, right," said Grandma, figuring he was just another ignorant clerk working for Wal-Mart. The clerks at Wal-Mart never have any idea what anything is, costs, or does. It's crazy. Anyway Grandma went, got another watermelon, took it to another clerk, and asked if the clerk would cut it open to check whether it was pink or yellow inside.
"Tee-hee-hee," said the clerk. Judging from Grandma's impersonation, I figured this clerk was female, "I can tell you right now that this watermelon is red because it doesn't say 'Yellow Watermelon' on its tag."
Personally, I am glad I didn't find out what happened to the clerk afterwards. Grandma's story just ended there with "So. *rolls eyes*"

1+2=4

Grandad was really mad at Aunt Jennifer today for taking apart something he worked two hours to create just yesterday. He was explaining this to Grandma over dinner:
"And Paul (Jennifer's Husband) can't lift that all by himself! It took four people last time to lift it." Grandad said, consumed by a furious passion.
"Four people? I hope you weren't one of those four because your doctor said no heavy lifting," Grandma said.
"Oh, I wasn't," said Grandad off-handedly.
"Who was?" Grandma asked.
"Oh well, Duncan," Grandad said indicating me stuffing my face with meat and peppers and walnuts and all that good stuff, "And two women who were helping."
"Who was the fourth?" Grandma asked. That was some keen calculation there. I probably couldn't do that so fast as I was busy eating.
"Hm. Let me think," Grandad said.
There was quite a long pause as Grandad thought.
"Oh well, I guess that was me," Grandad said after much deliberation.

Foul!

Grandad came down to breakfast a few days ago and announced:
"I have proof that the Democrats used voter fraud to steal the last North Carolina election!"
Ta-da! This could totally get my Grandad an interview on one of the four major networks.
"So?" Grandma asked.
Grandad began to explain but Grandma cut him off: "I don't want to hear politics over breakfast."
Anyways, what happened was that the State Board of Elections counted all votes that didn't have identies attached to them, which is illegal. You can technically come in and say "My name is Duncan McPherson and I would like to vote." and they would count it BUT you have to leave an address behind that is valid. It turns out that none of these voters left addresses meaning every time you look at the State Board of Elections it has inserted a plethora of voters who "registered this year" who do not have addresses. That is like leaving a path of destruction and knocked down trees when the main characters are all wondering: "Hm? Do you think there's a monster running around these woods?" Foul! These people should be thrown in prison! Grandad has sent this information to his elected official. Hopefully something will be done.

Finished probably

Grandad assigned me to write a speech for a motivational tape that he'll show at neighborhood Republican barbecues to get people to sign up to volunteer. It sounds really important, right? Right. If I did this wrong nobody would sign up to help Grandad and then Grandma will continue to be given the full brunt of Grandad's volunteerism. So this was important. Anyway, essays/speeches are not my cup of tea. I am criminally bad at writing. I ought to get a life sentence for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue. In the end, my speech looked more like a motivational book report for Liberty and Tyranny. (Which was the book my Grandad wanted me to base my speech off of.)

By the way, Liberty and Tyranny is your typical bestseller: Really good stuff, really boring read. Levin, the guy who wrote it, runs a really good radio show. I think he for some reason assumed that unlike radio, books are not for entertainment. So the book is singularly unentertaining but it's really good heady stuff. P.S. Dr. McClay was quoted in it. That's how intellectual it was.

Back onto the subject of the speech. Now I'm just hoping my Grandad doesn't take one look at it and tell me to rewrite it. That would be devestating.

Birthday Month

When we were in Disneyworld it was my cousin's birthday on Sunday. We went to magic kingdom and had a really good time. For the rest of the vacation, Kathryn was "the birthday girl." Andrew said to me multiple times during this trip, "Stop wishing Kathryn a happy birthday. Her birthday was Sunday!" Just goes to show what he knows.

Yes, it is still her birthday. Tonight we are going out to dinner, a movie (Up, which you guys have already seen), and then ice cream. The celebration will not end! It's great! Grandma thinks it is just because Aunt Jennifer wanted to take her kids to see Up. I don't blame her.

Shakespeare, NC style

Alright, so I suddenly and violently remembered that I had 3/4 of my lines due tomorrow. About five hours ago I only had 77 out of 150. Now, I have 130, which counts. Phew. I was scared I might not be ready for a minute there.

Now the only problem is putting some life into these lines. I've had it up to here with my Heather's (my "Director's") snide comments about how lifeless and dull my performance is. When I'm practicing she'll occasionally say something like "Pfft. I wonder how miserable my life would be if I was being outdone by a fourteen-year-old. (Reference to Matthew M_______.)" She's so annoying. I'm glad she is not here in NC and I can practice in relative peace. Grandma only comes in every few minutes and asks me why I'm moving my mouth obscurely.

Trees

My Grandad and Grandma have a back and forth argument about whether their backyard should have trees in it. Grandad doesn't want trees in his backyard. He says they shed too many leaves and obstruct the view. Grandma wants trees. They provide shade and they obstruct the view. (She doesn't like to see the neighbor's houses. She says they look "trashy.") I tend to side with Grandma because she's the one who cooks and that food tastes really good. What is your input on this dilemma?

Fruit

You know what I really enjoy eating? Fruit. It is so tasty. Fruit is like a mix between candy that doesn't make you sick and vegetables that taste good. I just can't get enough of it. Yesterday, Grandma bought a watermelon. It was so good. I ate it all that evening. Mmmm mmmm, watermelon. You know what else tasted good? Grapes. Grandma bought a lot of those too. Mmmmmm. So good. I haven't even touched the Moose Tracks ice cream yet. That is how good fruit tastes.