Post Oblige

I had planned to do a rather ambitious piece today about Christmas and journeys. I had planned on showing the lists for Santa from the boys and had decided on a giant theme about wholesomeness. I'd even planned to use the phrase Noblessse Oblige and it's opposite Duresse Oblige.

Wouldn't that have been fancy?

But, then I saw something bright and shiny. It made me laugh and feel lighter. Lately, my thoughts have been heavy, grayer... difficult, actually. That's cool, you understand, we should all dwell where we need to, that's fine. But, sometimes – more often than not – you just need silly and easy and delightful and, well, true.

These are from the backseat of my truck.  I've long advocated a ready arsenal of crafty crap, pencils markers, all that, so, a while back, when I encountered, buried in a box of blog fodder carefully preserved memories, a couple of old journals the boys had started in kindergarten, I grabbed them and, long sentence short, I chucked them in the backseat.  Well, they found them and had a grand old time, uh, well, basically, making fun of their stupid earlier entries.

Here are the covers:

For some reason, Zack thought this was hilarious:

We aren't really sure what that script part says - "enesis" Zack thought - but for some absurd reason, he thought this was funny.  Yeah, I get it, it is funny.  Sweet funny, good funny, simple funny.

Nick's journal had this which he himself had trouble decoding:

It's really quite simple once you realize that's not an 'o' it is a 'd' and that third word is the most creative and curious spelling of stars "sdors" you'll ever see.

Let's just look at it as he wrote it:  "I Like sDors / sDoRs r BRit / the sDors kuM / AWt At Nieet / I Love sDors / By NiCK."  Honestly I can't help but think, was this his first text?  And, well, why does it read like one of my latenight notes to myself (winky guy).

Underneath it is the cutest little orphan of a handicapped star you ever did see.  Don't you just want to take it home and love it forever?  Cutest.  Star.  Ever.

Here's a page from Zack's:

"kapin Irile" was a true stumper.  But I got it:  "I like to play with you / I like to go with you / Camping (kapin) I really like to / Play with you / I love you and i like / you.

And there's a little picture of a guy in a really cool hat with a crescent moon on it, his arms outstretched smiling under a swirly sun... no, wait, that's a 'C' on his hat and, well, I can't really tell through these tears but, I'm pretty sure that's me. Well, whaddyaknow?  I need a tissue...

This was in Nick's book:

"I like me, my name is Nick."  Yep...

Zack did a stars thing, too:

"I like stars, they are pretty / I love cats they are nice. / I have a guitar. / I have a bear (bar). / I have two hands. / My favorite animal is a zebra."  I have two hands, I like that part.

This entry seems sort of odd:

He's right, shaps are fun, and flawrs are prite, and, little boys are perfectly imperfect.

Both boys seem to have devised a hair-brained scheme.  Nick said of his when he found it again, some three years latter:  "What the heck is this?"

Sadly, no one knows what it says, but it is clearly nefarious in concept.

And, speaking of which, this is Zack's plan.  It's sort of hard to explain, but, it is on two pages, beginning on the right side of the portfolio, and, uh, there is half a page torn off and it flips, left in this case, to make the top half of the second part of the scene...  Right:

All that matters is there, at the bottom on the left, dude lands on his head.  That's hilarious... you know what?  Is it a frog?  That's even funnier.

Nick did an octopus:

... Beecus (duh) ocdupasis.  (I love the sword thingee.  What the hell?)

Just a couple more and I'll get to my point.  That's funny, like I planned to get to something...

"Her name is grace..."

I love Muthe NaChr (Mother Nature) too, Nick.  And I hope someday we all have cloud hands...


Now, let's fast forward a little more than three years and see what they are doing in their journals now.  Here's Nick's latest, written on the way to and while waiting at the dentist:

"Plowing on a Wednesday"  (a Poem)

Plowing on a Wednesday at 5:00AM, Milkin the cows galowr (unknown) eating bacon, sladuring
 (slaughtering, that's pleasant) pigs.  My dads in love with a pig named Glove (WTF!), great plow Ox named Box, theres a fox named socks hunting grubs not rugs.  Penut butter and jelley my favrot spaggety its right after lunch and I have a hunch pizza for dinner, yummey and i'm a dummey no pizza out hear deer i'll hunt deer Gee I'm filled with glee I see a deer with a big ear  I hunt it I boil it I cook some stew yummey galoo I go to bed with a cofey (comfy) pillow to rest my head, good night.  By Nick

Holy cow!  When he read it to us it had sort of a rap beat that morphed to the tune of B-I-N-G-O.  True story ...

Somehow, in some bizarre separate reality, Nick's poem inspired Zack to write this:

"Plowing on a friday"  (I believe that is a musical staff above the title.)

I live on a farm / with corn on my arm. /  And lettuce where they met us. / The fox named Sox is making / a fus and I must be / wrong cause The plow / went Ding Dong!  While where (we're) / plowing on a Friday. /  The fog is around.  On satur - / day with a hog in a bog

This was sung to a rather medieval tune not unreminiscent of Greensleeves.

Shit got weird don't you think?

Honestly, the funniest part was how brutal they were on their old selves, somehow I find that sort of strange, but, I know the feeling.  In fact, just recently, I made the mistake of thinking I was done, had reached a place, a destination.  But, like Nick's orphaned "sdor" I still have a lot of growing to do, even if I am all nice and sparkly.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"You know what should be an Olympic sport? Pillow fighting."

Winter or Summer?  That's all I'm askin'...


Thanks for stopping by here today, the road is strange, long, and so very, very beautiful, I appreciate you sharing it with me.