Smile!

A week or two ago, the gels all came home with their annual school photographs. 

We keep a framed 8×10 picture of each of them in the living room.  Yesterday I noticed that while the eldest gel’s portrait from last year had been duly swapped out, the other two remained unchanged.

“Are you going to put the new pics of the gels in those frames?” I asked Mrs. R.

“No,” she said. “I don’t like them. I’ll just leave last year’s for now.  Also, I’m not sending these new ones out to relatives.”

Now it’s true that both the younger gels seem to have spent a little time in the mosh pit before getting snapped this year.  While they’re both smiling very nicely, their hair brings to mind Medusa on one of her bad mornings.

Nonetheless, it struck me that truth is truth.  I pointed out to Mrs. R that her arbitrary selection of pics to ensure the most correct face forward, as it were, reminded me of the old Soviet practice of manipulating Politburo Mayday Parade photos.

“Shut up,” she explained.

Out Of The Mouths….

I generally try to keep off teh politics here, but I thought this story would amuse you.

Yesterday afternoon Mrs. R and I were chatting with our next-door neighbor as we waited for the school bus to arrive.  The NDN is a fairly typical young Cafeteria Catholic, the sort who seem to have voted for The One in droves this year.

After speaking of this and that, with a funny look in her eye the NDN suddenly said, “You know, [your 10 year old] said to me this morning that she didn’t like Obama because he wants to raise taxes and kill babies.”

I chuckled.  Mrs. R, on the other hand, wheeled round and punched me.

“Anyway,” continued the NDN, “I told her that it was a liiiiiitle more complicated than that.”  By then I had got the distinct impression that she was a wee bit upset about the whole business.

Mrs. R then chimed in with, “Robbo, you shouldn’t be giving the gel these ideas.”

I shrugged. “Well,” I said, “I also told her not to discuss politics with people, but that obviously didn’t stop her.  Next time just tell her you don’t want to talk about it.”

Of course, I could have said, “Actually, it isn’t all that complicated,” but I didn’t really feel like mixing it up.  Instead I just imagined that the clanging sound I heard was the gel’s roundshot glancing off the NDN’s conscience.