jpkang's Xanga

cartoon violence

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:26:17 GMT

We had Ratatouille on again yesterday at home.

In the early chapter when Remy ventures into the granny's house, Lupi shouted at the set "Be quiet, rat! You might wake the granny up!"

And then, when the granny woke up and stared at Remy, Lupi laughed. At this point, I asked if she wanted me to skip the shotgun melee, which on all previous viewings had been too scary for her, but this time, she said "It's OK."

I watched her face, calm as the violence ensued, and asked "Is it OK? It's not scary?"

"No... it's funny."

p.s. K and I watched the Dark Knight last night. It was ambitious, unpredictable, surreal, emotional, and spiritual. I think I'm going to need to watch it again on DVD with the subtitles.

p.s.

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:33:27 GMT

On the drive to preschool this morning:

What's more important--love or money?

(without hesitation) Love and money.

(silence)

What do you mean?

Well, I'm just saying . . . money is important to pay. Love is important to fill up your body with love.

(more silence)

So love is like food?

Yeah, I'm just saying.

now why didn't i think of that?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:31:31 GMT

K's out of town this weekend for a friend's wedding (her first time away from the girls for longer than a few hours!), so I've been the primary caregiver for the girls. I thought I wasn't the kind of person who took things for granted, but I must've been taking at least the care she gives to the girls somehow for granted--I can't explain the feeling exactly, but life just seems less stable when she's not around. Whew. So glad she's coming home tomorrow!

So today we spent part of the day at home, then ventured out in the mild drizzle to play at Green Lake Park, get some cupcakes at Cupcake Royale in Ballard, then to the University Village mall to play some more and get dinner. Spending so much time with the girls yielded the following nuggets of conversation:

At home, when I was working to prepare a job for email delivery (and using the TV as a babysitter), she complained: "Don't be selfish!" Unfortunately, I was really stuck between a rock and a hard place (admittedly of my own doing), and while I just wanted to punt the work and take the girls out ASAP, I just couldn't. Note to self: procrastinate less and be more responsible.

Driving around the lake, she mused aloud about why boys only cover their bottoms when they go swimming: "They would be warmer if they wore a two-piece bathing suit."

Upon seeing a woman with bright pink hair at a playground, Lupi noted that she had "highlights." I explained that she had "dyed" her hair, to which she quizzically replied, "So her hair is not alive?"

Later, we were talking about grandparents, and she asked me about my grandparents. I told them they had all died. "Why?" "Because they got old." "Am I old?" "No. You're very young." "When will I be old?" (and, on a side note, she has asked and observed a few times, "Why did Jesus die? I don't like that...")

When we got home, she volunteered (as she has a few times in the past few weeks): "Daddy, I have a secret for Father's Day, but you can't ask me about it because I can't tell you." (I wasn't asking! And what incontrovertible logic!)

Priceless.

Really, where does she get her material?

Thu, 22 May 2008 02:27:16 GMT

Apart from recognizing new words all the time and taking spelling dictation (for some strange reason, her output reminds me of the Gezer "calendar"), Lupi is always finding ways to make me laugh and remember the most important things:

Tonight's quotable: "Daddy, can we send your computer away when you're done working?"

Happy mother's day!

Sun, 11 May 2008 05:09:53 GMT

Transformiition

Fri, 09 May 2008 22:27:45 GMT

Just came back from a couple days in southern Calif., one of the highlights of which was playing my cousin's new Wii. We've got five Mii avatars on there now, from left to right: (Uncle) Henry, (Aunt) Kelly, Lupi, me (as "mac hero"), and (cousin Ann) Sookie:

(a cropped iChat cap)

walking to save the planet (or, the daughter of necessity)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:44:58 GMT

I'm relieved to know I'm normal as far as doting on my children goes. I probably have around 200GB of data total (Roy gets 200GB a day).

Here's a tiny slice of Olivia's data set. The back story is that we haven't gotten her a normal walker toy, one with wheels she can push around as she learns to walk (we'd tried loading down a toy doll stroller so it wouldn't capsize on her but she hasn't really taken to it). Her balance is pretty good, but she currently only takes a step or two on her own before plopping down. So I was tickled to see her improvise with a bin tonight which we use for recyclables (ergo, the post title). Enjoy!

Tell me, O Muse, ...

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:03:53 GMT

Oh, sorry, not that Odyssey. This one.

After several months of tooling around town (mainly to church and back) in my friend Eugene's blue 1990 Miata (thanks!!!) our family has graduated to the minivan class. Are we in da club? We could kid that we got it for its "aggressive styling, sleek spoiler, and alloy wheels"—but the honest truth is we just needed more space and now we have it.

Here are our little QA engineers at work (not the trim we got):

Here she is, parked at home, being baptized by the hail (!) this afternoon:

p.s. We got our car at Klein Honda in Everett, and definitely recommend doing research at edmunds.com and trying internet sales for email quotes before getting serious.

Mariners-Angels

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:34:13 GMT

So I went to my third baseball game ever tonight, watching the Mariners vs. the Angels (the first was in seventh grade, watching the Braves in Atlanta ca. 1983, when Dale Murphy was MVP, and the second was 1997 or so, watching the Yankees play the Rangers). The weather was incredibly nice today (high around 74F), and we enjoyed a picnic at Gasworks Park beforehand with folks from KUPC. And it was soul patch night.

Lupi is four and has never been to a stadium, so I think it is safe to say there was a lot of new things to process (not that any of it was all that familiar to me!).

For one, she has never seen so many people in one place at one time. When we were walking in, a thunderous cheer went up with lots of people clapping wildly, which... made her clap along. Then she said it was too loud. When she saw the field, she said "We're on TV!!!"

I tried to summarize the basic ideas behind the game (two teams, hitting the ball, and nine innings), but I think she must've thought we were actually going to play a game, not watch other people play. She complained that it was "boring" and "too long," but overall I thought she did pretty well (bonus points since she was a little under the weather).

She participated in a couple crowd waves and pointed out signs she recognized ("Trader Joe's!"). Near the end of the game, she observed that the players were "like statues."

Thanks to Jimmy and the rest of the KUPC crew for a fun time!

p.s. O turned one yesterday. Pictures here and a slideshow there. She stayed home with Calif. grandma for the game!

"it's so cool . . ."

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:09:03 GMT

"it's so cool how your iPhone is like a computer... and it's like a GPS, too."
—Lupita, 8:45 pm