PhotoShoot Sunday 20 January 2008

The Food Critic

After three years of certainty that she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up, Alison is starting to think about other careers. Saturday night, we sat down to a taco salad dinner that Jeff had prepared. She’d protested earlier that she wouldn’t like taco salad and could she please have pasta or Ramen or nachos, but Jeff was having none of it and fixed her a salad.

He had her at first bite. As she munched happily away, she said, “I think when I grow up I might want to be a food critic.”

“Really?” I said, “Why a food critic?”

“Well, you just go to places and taste the food and then write about it. Seems pretty easy,” she said.

Her first review is as follows:

Dad’s Taco Salad:

“Kind of crunchy but with a just a little bit of mushy. Not too spicy. It’s good. Like, really, really good!”

The Artist

(I take these pictures and tell stories of our craft extravaganzas every now and then just to play with Amy Tokash’s clean-freak mind. I really should take before and after shots to reassure her that we do pick-up when we’re done. But that wouldn’t be as much fun as making her have nightmares about hosting her own craft corner one day.)

Because Valentine’s Days isn’t far away, we were on a bit of a mission this morning. We had open jars of paint, glue and glue sticks. Scissors, beads, ribbons, stickers, markers and crayons were scattered about. Paper scraps were everywhere, and the stickers were peel-offs, so there were those little bits of glossy paper bits, too. It was a fun morning. We may actually get our valentines done before February this year.

Other stuff

Congratulate our friend Bob Johnson, who recently scored a weekly columnist gig at the Johnson County Daily Journal. It runs Thursdays, and I think you can access it via: http://www.thejournalnet.com . Some of the content requires a subscription, but it’s worth checking out on Thursday to see if you can see his column.

Allah: There’s more to this tiger than you knew…

Jeff put Ali to bed the other night and she was having a hard time getting to a sleepy point. Jeff asked her if she ever tried telling stories to Allah, her best friend (from among her stuffed ones) and usual sleeping partner. Oh, sure, she told her secrets, too. Allah’s a good secret keeper because if anyone tried to steal one of Alison’s secrets, Allah could open her mouth up and swallow them whole. She could swallow a whole apartment, so there’s really no way her secrets are in danger, Alison said, quite seriously.

“Are you ever afraid that Allah will swallow you up while you sleep?” Jeff asked. (This is the guy who wonders why she sometimes has nightmares.)

“Oh no, Dad, see this?” she said, pointing to a stretchy bracelet she’d placed around Allah’s neck. “I put this device there so she can’t ever swallow me.”

“But what if she swallows someone else? Someone one who’s nice?” he asked.

“Well, I also put a special door in the back of her right leg, see?” she pointed out. That’s a secret way out. So if there’s anyone trapped in there, I can go in and get them and lead them to safety.”

“But what if a bad guy is in there and he finds the way out?”

“Well, I thought of that,” she said. “I put a sign in there that says, ‘This way to the exit,’ and has a big red arrow pointing left. But really, that’s the way to her stomach, and they get eaten up. The exit is really to the right.”

Should I be happy about her elaborate imagination or worried about its violent ending for the bad guys?