So slow

We're supposed to be at Target, buying stickers and pumpkins for a halloween party that starts in an hour. Instead, the children are eating at the pace of molasses-covered snails (is that a delicacy somewhere? Idaho, perhaps?) and are asking me questions that just don't need to be asked:

-Can I plant the yucky part of the banana in the garden so banana trees will grow?
-Can I have a giant salt crystal for dessert?
-How many people are alive who are 33 years old right now? How many people are 33 years old and exactly 6 feet tall?
-If we plant every banana at the store, would our backyard be a jungle? If our backyard turned to a jungle, would animals from the jungle live there? Would the Lorax come?
-If a cobra gets hot, does it take off its hood?

I have answered exactly one of these questions and that was only because I wanted a giant salt crystal for dessert, as well.

A few weeks ago, the boys were reading about evolution and natural selection and not-so-natural (ie, human driven) selection and we came upon a documentary about dog breeds. As a result, our vocabulary of dog breeds is both rich and peculiar right now. (Aside: homeschooling leads to  some strange rabbit holes as the kids decide they want to know more about some peripheral aspect of whatever they're learning about at the moment. It's been interesting to watch.) So randomly in the car, this happened:

Weston: Elsa is a suzuki. 

Me: Ahh...like a car? Or the violinist?

W: Not any of those things. She is a dog. 

Me: Yes...

W: The kind of dog that is called a suzuki.

Me: Saluki? Like from the show we watched?

W: That's what I said. Saluki. 

Me: Ok. What makes you say that?

W: Because she looks like one and Dada showed me a picture. 

Me: Rhodesian Ridgeback. She looks like a Rhodesian Ridgeback...also called an African Lion Dog. Remember?

W: That's what I said. African lion dog. 

For the record, Elsa is a North Carolina Mutt. She does look an awful lot like a Rhodesian Ridgeback though.

Ghosts in our midst

Weston has a tendency to blame all kinds of things on an invention he has named "It-The-Ghost." Anytime he says something rude or just plain strange, he scapegoats (scapeghosts?) his imaginary pal.

Weston: Do you have froth on your tongue?
Me: Do I have--no. I do not have froth on my tongue. What a question!
Weston, chortling: It-The-Ghost told me to ask that question.
Me: That It-The-Ghost is a wild character, isn't he?
W: Yes. And silly, too.
Me: Of course: silly, too.
W: You know who else is both wild and silly?
Me: You?
W, a bit offended: No, of course. Luke-The-Ghost, in fact.
Me: Ah, yes, that old Luke-the-Ghost.
W: And Mama-Ghost and Dada-Ghost and the new Ghost-baby.
Me: So there's a new Ghost-baby, is there?
W: Actually, two. No, three new ghost babies.
Me: Those ghosts certainly have their hands full, don't they?
W: Full of babies. And tape also.
Me: Why tape?
W: They live in our tape dispensers. That's why they need so many babies. We have a lot of tape dispensers, you know.


(We do have a lot of tape dispensers, all of which are out of tape, so what good is that?)

((I find the above conversation infinitely more satisfying when read out loud in a British accent, or as close to one as you can manage. Then again, I find most things more satisfying that way. I had kept this preference hidden from McMoose for nearly a decade because while there are many offenses that can be forgiven in a person--hogging the blankets, ordering veggie burgers with bacon on top, wanting to name one's children after cities in Wisconsin, that kind of thing--I'm not entirely sure reading aloud in a foreign accent is something from which a marriage ever fully recovers. Of course, he walked into the bedroom unexpectedly one recent evening and found me reading a book about punctuation out loud to myself and my last secret suffered an instant death. I am now an open book. An open audiobook, perhaps.))

(((I do love an interesting book about punctuation. No, that isn't an oxymoron at all--why do you ask?)))