sg

At dinner, we asked where you wanted to have your third birthday party. You said “I wanna at tea party dinosaur special treat!” We were thinking more along the lines of Gymboree, but it’s sweet that you think mommy and daddy have the power to transport a tea service back through time.^*

^* Your statement may also be taken to mean that you think that we can bring a dinosaur forward through time. While this makes more sense in an Einsteinian universe, it would be horribly irresponsible. You’ll understand once you’ve seen Jurassic Park.

Unless otherwise indicated, links are to YouTube; “by” means “performed by”; and you really should visit the highlighted links.

Songs you consistently like:

• Subway Joe, by Joe Bataan
• Leyendecker, by Battles
• Super Disco Breakin’, by the Beastie Boys
• Chicago Falcon, by the Budos Band
• Old Chunk of Coal, by Johnny Cash
• Wolverton Mountain, by Claude King
• Up-tempo songs by the Cure (e.g., In Between Days, Why Can’t I Be You?, Friday I’m In Love, Close to Me, Just Like Heaven…)
• “Chu chu chu song” (a/k/a +81), by Deerhoof
• Jingle Bells, in any form
• Let’s Go, by Medeski, Martin & Wood
• Thunder Chicken, by the Mighty Imperials
• Pretty Pretty Priya, by Anand Prayag & Chorus
• Itsy Bitsy Spider, by Ramona the Pest (you can hear a bit of it here [not YouTube], but the sample ends before the song reaches full howling riot grrrl)
• Pick It Up, Lay It in the Cut, by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
• Low Rider, by War
• Amen, Brother, by the Winstons
• Senses Working Overtime, by XTC

Songs I figured you’d really like, but you don’t seem to:

• Song 2, by Blur
• Whip It, by Devo
• Iko Iko, by the Dixie Cups (I’m not giving up on this one)
• 1234, by Feist, but you just saw the Sesame Street version, so we’ll have to see how that alters the mix. For what it’s worth, Norah Jones has a much stronger Sesame Street presence. And Ben Stiller used his Sesame Street appearance as an opportunity to work on his one character, a character named Ben Stiller”.
• We R Superheroes, by Robbert Bobbert
• Greenman, by XTC

Songs you like to sing:

• Mairzy Doats (I don’t know that guy, which is why YouTube is awesome. I do know Leland, but it’s not like we’re friends or anything.)
• You Are My Sunshine
• Title unknown (“[Name] came to school today / to school today / to school today / [Name] came to school today / and we’re so glad // Get up and dance, [Name] / Get up and dance, [Name] / Get up and dance, [Name] / Now sit back down!”)
• Made up stuff [not YouTube]

When AT sees this list, she will say “I’m surprised you didn’t include [thing I left out]”, which I will then include so that AT will have to travel back in time if she wants to make the same complaint again, which I know she can’t do because I sold the flux capacitor and spent the money on magic beans.

Sg: “I like cranberry juice. It’s, like, colorful.”

Sg, we were on our way to the drive through Starbucks on Briarcliff. (Drive through because we’d put you in pajamas after an afternoon bath, and I didn’t feel like changing you into “get out of the car” clothes.) When we stopped at the light to cross Ponce, the sunroof was open. Before we got more than 200 meters on the other side of that light, it was pouring so hard that we had to slow to about 10-15 miles per hour. The wind was gusting in a pretty scary way. (Like as in you could see walls of air moving like giant fists down the hill on our right, the rain in front of the wall moving a completely different direction than the rain behind.)

Then some trees fell down. If I may use the picture below (thanks to Google Maps) as a visual aid:

1. This tree fell down. The Google Street View cameras are a little fish eye, and I think this tree is bigger than it looks in this picture. At least, it looked ginormous while it was falling toward the road and across the Fernbank Museum entrance. Everything is green now, too.
2. One or more of these trees fell across the road. There was one car ahead of me, roughly where the car in this picture was. I wonder whether the driver soiled him/herself.
3. When the tree(s) from #2 hit the power lines on the other side of the road, there was much flashing and sparking (which I would have guessed only happened for dramatic effect in movies).
4. You were here. I couldn’t help noticing at the time that we were surrounded by big oak trees. We turned around and headed back home (where the power was out, but all of our oaks were still standing).

Update: The AJC has posted an article and a few pictures, including this one:

Sg, you’ve been saying “wormaid” when I’m sure you mean mermaid, and you pronounce “pull-up” like “pool-up”. It’s all adorable, but these are probably things you should knock off before adulthood.

Sg, I started recording with my phone while you were making up songs in the back seat.

I’ve only been meaning to scan these for about 2.5 years. At the hospital, right after you were born, they took these footprints. Photoshop and my scanner say that the left foot is about 2.5 inches long. I guess the one on the right is the same, but it sure does look a lot bigger. Weirdo.