Friday, May 20, 2011

Air Quotes


Oliver got up from the dinner table where we'd sat and the children ate bow-tie pasta with olive oil and parmesan cheese, tiny French green beans and sea salt. Here in Los Angeles, we've had the "pleasure" of viewing enormous billboards proclaiming the end of the world, imminent, for months. While my boys laugh and scoff at the whole thing, they also seem a bit nervous, particularly Oliver. During dinner I reassured him that we lived right down the street from the La Brea Tar Pits, where the bones of animals literally millions of years old lie buried in tar. We are just specks in a long continuum that will go on forever and ever, probably as long as our lifetimes and way, way beyond, I said. Henry stated that if it were really the end of the world tomorrow, he wished that he hadn't gone to school.

As we cleared the table, Oliver said to me, using air quotes on the word last:

I'm going to take my "last" bath, Mom.

11 comments:

  1. ty's my worrier. he's a tad freaked out about the whole thing. will just have to wait till sunday morning to reassure them all. poor things...

    xoxoxo

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  2. Love that boy, and his sense of humor! I wonder where he got it? =)

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  3. I want to come to your house for tiny french green beans with sea salt and dinner table discussions about rapture. And cake (to be eaten, not discussed..). :)

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  4. Poor Oliver. He'll have to take another bath tonight.

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  5. When my nephew was around your son's age, he stopped drinking Kool aide because of what happened in Jonestown. When I was a child my mum made an offhand remark one day about our hot water heater that made so much noise and that one day it would go. For months I worried about it, sure that it would explode and kills us all. One night when I couldn't sleep she asked me what was wrong and I told her. She told me that when the hot water heater went, we would just stop having hot water. No explosion.

    Kids worry and crazy people don't help. Who would want to terrify so many young children? A man of "God"? Surely God does not want to scare children.

    Hope Oliver has a nice relaxing bath tonight.

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  6. It's a shame that these people are allowed to buy space on a billboard to be looked upon by all ages. It is wrong to scare children this way even if it is free speech.

    Hopefully some humor can remain to not take this too seriously.

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  7. I asked my son, the professional worrier, if he had any concerns. He said he thought it would be cool to sit back and watch.

    That's my boy...

    Love your response to your boy. Hope he enjoyed his bath.

    xo

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  8. I think that is what I hate most about those tacky billboards .... That kids are reading them too. What a kook that guy is .. And now we ALL know he is a kook.

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  9. Perhaps the rapture came and went. I'm not sure. At the exact time it was supposed to happen, I was having a nap on the couch. Could be I woke up to the "afterlife" and it just looks exactly like my before life. Which means one of three things: either my life before was hell and I'm still here, or it was Heaven and I'm still here, or it was Purgatory and I'm still here. In any case, I don't think I'll worry too much about it.

    Good for Oliver! ;-)

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  10. his comedic timing is impecable. as you can see, i am totally catching up here!!! i have neither been writing in my own blog or visiting my favs as much lately bc so busy with the "book" (in my own air quotes) but please know i LOVE you and will always catch up!!! :)

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