Sunday, July 29, 2012

This Sibling Decoupling

For whatever reason, the song "I'm Sexy and I Know It" became very popular at my school this year.

Now, there is a certain pair of brothers at my school. One 10 years old, a little more quiet, a nice kid, but fairly reserved off of the sports field and shy with people he doesn't know, and one 7 years old, generally more outgoing, the class clown, always with something to say.  Both of their reactions to the song came as a complete surprise to me.

One day in Drama class, the older brother and one of the other grade 4 boys were asked to get out some chairs for a game.  The teacher had his back turned, and heard a sudden outburst of laughter from the rest of the class.  He turned around and saw the boys up on the chairs, singing "I'm Sexy and I Know It" and doing the 'wiggle, wiggle, wiggle' dance.

A while later, I overheard a conversation between the younger brother and his gym teacher, Cali.  "Cali," he said, "have you seen the video for 'I'm Sexy and I Know It'?"  Cali told him she had, and with all seriousness he looked at her and said "You shouldn't be watching it.  It is VERY inappropriate."  A little taken aback, Cali asked him why the video was in appropriate.  He said "There's this guy who is dancing, and then he takes his pants off, and he's just in his underwear, and his crotch is really big, and that makes it inappropriate".  At this point, his friend (always the voice of reason) piped up and said "Well, maybe there's a potato in there".

Life Lesson: People can, and will, surprise you.     

Monday, July 23, 2012

The Independence Amplification

Recently, one fine Saturday morning, I was getting ready for a good friend's bridal shower.  It was a warm morning, and I had left my patio door open to get a nice breeze through my place.  I stepped out of the shower, wrapped up in a towel and went to grab some clothes.

It was at that point that I realized something was off.  There was a magpie in my apartment.  It was flopping around, squawking and pooping everywhere.  What a casual observer would have seen was me calmly wait until it settled down, pick up one of my kitchen towels, walk over and use it to grab the bird and take it outside where I flung it over the balcony and it flew away.

My mental processes, however, went something like "What the HELL!  Why don't I have a man here to handle this!  I should be calmly getting ready lovely bridal shower, not running around my apartment naked, trying to capture a frickin' bird!"

Life Lesson: Sometimes life asks us to stand up and prove ourselves, be it in the face of adversity, turmoil, or sometimes random birds.