For Heather...and the rest of you too.

From Nathan and Melanie Barnes:

These are too good not to share.

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. i stead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for awhile.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with powertools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

The Force will be with you, always.

I am still a Star Wars geek. I realize that I've always been geekily excited about silly things for a very long time now, and that I am already drawing eye-rolls from Mom and Heather (at a bare minimum). But I just want you all to know that I am aware of my own geekiness. Self-awareness is a good thing, I think.

I have raged at times at George Lucas' inept handling of the Star Wars universe that I love so well, but I still like to go and play there. Today, the theater at Hill AFB (which shows movies for free on the weekends) had a Star Wars marathon. Due to other commitments, Nathaniel and I were only able to see one movie, so we chose Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. This movie is my favorite of all the Star Wars movies. Seeing the movie in a theater again allowed me to view it with the same sense of wonder I had when I was 15. I didn't worry about the bad acting or the special effects which now appear slightly dated. My anger and cynicism towards Mr. Lucas were strangely absent. I just had fun.

It reminded me of taking the bus downtown to the Center theater in the summer of 1980 with George Rivera or Nathan Barnes to see it (again and again). I remembered the endless debates with school mates over whether Darth Vader really WAS Luke's father. I remember swooshing Lego ships through imaginary asteroid fields while listening to the soundtrack. I also remember (15 years later) when the internet was a much less complicated place, and I played Star Wars trivia on AOL every friday night with a bunch of people who like Star Wars as much as I did. Can you name the order in which the Rebel Pilots checked in before their attack on the Death Star? I still can. So could all those online friends. I wonder what happened to them...

The Star Wars juggernaut continues to roll along, making money hand over fist for GL. That's fine. I'm just glad that he made a movie as good as Empire, so that I can fondly reminisce about a skinny kid who spent so much time in a galaxy far far away.

Les Miz!

Michal was in Northridge High School's production of Les Miserables. It was an amazingly elaborate affair, complete with rotating stage. Michal was "miked" for the singing parts she had; she was cast as "Girl #4" and "Onlooker #4". The cast and crew have been working hard since last summer. They were required to read the full unabridged 1400+ page novel by Victor Hugo and attend several symposiums on the book. The practices were many, long and grueling for everyone involved (including the families of the students). The hard work paid off. Here are some pics:




See Michal in the center of the picture, looking like one of France's down-trodden masses? She did a great job, and we are very proud of her.

Christmas, last month.

Here are a few pictures from Christmas:

Set for Christmas Breakfast..

Putting out cookies for Santa.


Waiting for permission to go downstairs on Christmas morning.

I WON A MAJOR AWARD!

When we bought Justine her laptop for school, we were evidently entered into a Dell contest. I was informed via FedEx a few weeks ago that we had won a major prize package including an XBox360, a digital camera and an MP3 player. I hadn't finished reading the letter before the kids were parting out the package; Nathaniel wanted the XBox and the MP3 player, Michal and Justine were arguing over the camera. Silly kids, it's all mine, Mine MINE! Actually, Becky gets the MP3 player.

Then the garage door and the TV broke. So since the cost of repairs more than offset any material gain, my karmic wheel is balanced again.

Blogsloth

It's been a month since I posted anything. Weird. It doesn't feel like it's been that long.

I am surprised every year to find out how much I dislike winter. My friend Brandon is currently at ABM School in Florida. He offered to trade his warm beach for the snow. DEAL! Just let me know when to load up the van and haul everyone down there. I'll even finish school for you. I am always cold, and I am always sore from shoveling snow, and the floor is alway dirty from having snow tracked inside.

But I do like all the Holidays a federal employee gets during the winter season: Christmas, New Years, MLK, and President's Day. Give's me a chance to catch up on my blogging.

On the 12th Day of Christmas...

According to Aly, my true love gave me:

Six fleece a-slaying
Three Fresh Hens (or Presh Chins, depending on the verse)
Two Turbo Dubs
And a Partridge Ginger Pear Tree.

If your kids are under a certain age, you may want to dismiss them before reading the next part...




My kids are all truly different. When each of them "found out", they had vastly different responses.

Justine cried.
Michal shrugged and said "Oh, okay."
Nathaniel's eyes twinkled as he said "I've known since I was nine."

So much for breaking it to him gently.