by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . January 31, 2011 . 8:49PM
My friend April is one of the calmest, most level-headed people I know. She rescues animals and has the sweetest nature. She’s quiet and always willing to lend a hand to anyone that needs it. However, there comes a time when April isn’t sweet, kind or particularly compassionate and that’s trivia night.
I struggle with how to describe the change that comes over my dear friend. We all head to the nearby Mexican restaurant for a night of relaxation and laughter. The rules are simple: don’t use your cell phones, don’t yell out answers and submit them within the time limit to the person running the trivia night. We spend the time, as a small group of friends, eating delicious Mexican cuisine, running through our vat of useless knowledge and really, just having a wonderful time. I look forward to trivia night for weeks prior to it happening and I think my friends feel the same way.
When we get there, however, a subtle change begins to take over my friend, April. It starts with the delicious food. April starts to hum and dance a little at she eats what is, inevitably, a mountainous plate of food that she will never finish. When she proclaims herself full it will look as though she took one bite even though she ate just as long as everyone else did. During this time, she will smile and everything will appear to be well on the surface. It’s not. Oh, no, it’s not. Do not be fooled. She’s gearing up the way some people wear their dirty socks to a game. April is in it to win it.
When it comes time to play, she will cheerfully volunteer to go get the game sheets and bounce, nay, skip to the game table and come back with our sheets. Team Android, as we are called (what? We LIKE our phones), is about to show you all how it’s done. During this time, the change begins to show itself as whomever is putting our name on the sheets isn’t writing them quickly enough and April begins to scope out the competition.
As the game is played, April’s eyes shift and she makes sure that all are playing by rules and WOE to them if they are not. This has culminated in her calling people out for using cell phones by glaring at them until they feel her eyes on them, making it known to AJ so he will say “You aren’t supposed to use cell phones” loudly enough that they get up and leave and, during one of our last nights out, had April openly mocking a team who raised their hands to cheer when they did well.
April is not a mean girl. But Trivia night brings out the fighter in her. I have to say that it is hysterical and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Mild mannered American sweetheart by day. Cage fighter by Mexican trivia night.
I might just request that they play Eye of the Tiger just for her, next time.
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by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 30, 2010 . 7:51PM
During the summer months, there are some days where I have so few clients that AJ doesn’t have to attend his summer program and he is allowed to come hang out with me at the office. My friend Meggan is doing her practicum with us and he thinks Meggan hung the moon. He hangs out with Meggan or plays his Nintendo DS and I see clients while he avoids going to the summer program he claims is boring him and rotting his brains out. Hardly. The summer program does cool things like going to Jump Zone and swimming and playing games. But AJ is a momma’s boy and that little guy would rather be in close proximity to me than most anything in the whole world. When asked what he’d liked to do for vacation if he had one week, with the thought of Disney World being an option and anything else in the whole United States being the other option, he replied “Go to NeeNee’s because we PARTY.” He has no idea what he’s passing up and we love family time.
I’m veering off topic by a lot. I’m just going to say that my son is not worldly in the slightest and move on.
We were in the car on the way to my office when AJ asks, out of nowhere as per the norm, “Why do we celebrate 4th of July?” I’m not good with history, but I did my very best to explain our declaration of independence from England and why we chose to do so. He took this to mean that “we’re at war with England!” I explained that this was a long time ago and we are fine with England now. In fact, we’re pretty good friends. We like them. We do tea without tossing it over boats.
No. This is unacceptable. They were bad. They must pay. Grudges must be held.
I could feel the stewing going on in the back seat…and I chose to ignore it.
Until trivia night last night. There was a question regarding the back of the new quarters and the design on the back of one of them. The question had nothing to do with England, nor did it have to do with 4th of July or our war with England. But AJ chose to answer the question as “Florida. Because it has a direct line from England.”
I may not be strong in history. He’s not strong in geography. We’re both strong in grudge holding, but I think he’s got me beat. He mutters “England” in the same voice I utter “Derek Jeter.”
That’s my kid.
England, you better watch your back.
by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . March 23, 2010 . 10:15AM
Houston, we have a problem.
AJ does chores. I know that the idea of this may strike some parents as odd. There really are parents out there that don’t force their kids to do chores of any kind and for those parents I have a great big smack in the pants. For as much as I adore my child, he does plenty in this house. He does have a cell phone, gets to do lots of leisure activities and has all kinds of neat toys. But he does chores.
One of those chores is that he has to empty the trash cans in the house. Now, most people would just upend the smaller trashcan into the larger trash bag, get it done and move on, correct? Not AJ. AJ likes knowing exactly what I’m throwing away.
I wish I were kidding.
He’s just that nosy.
So, he takes the trash out of the trashcan a couple pieces at a time and sticks it into the larger trashbag, looking at each piece to determine whether he might want to keep that piece of trash or not. What this amounts to is him pulling out old paperclips, broken rubberbands, broken cups and pens that have run out of ink. Each of these ends up back on my end table where I cleaned them off in the first place.
When I question him regarding why he does this, he looks at me and replies, “What? We might need that later.”
I’m living with a future television star for the show HOARDERS.
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My friend April is one of the calmest, most level-headed people I know. She rescues animals and has the sweetest nature. She’s quiet and always willing to lend a hand to anyone that needs it. However, there comes a time when April isn’t sweet, kind or particularly compassionate and that’s trivia night.
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
