Cats with Frickin’ Laster Beams

06 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Games, Mom Stuff, Uncategorized

Cats with frickin’ laster beams attached to their heads! Not actually attached to their heads more like attached to a keychain that I can hold in my hand. It’s amazing that you can get lasers on keychains these days. Well, perhaps, not that amazing. A few years ago that might have been impressive. Now, well … go to the local computer shop and you can get one on a keychain for less than $5.

Sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! THAT’S impressive, but not ’cause the laser beams are scary. I’m sure the sharks have no idea how to use them anyway. 😉 Sharks with laser beams attached to their heads are impressive because SHARKS are impressive. And I don’t want to mess with anybody who has taken the time to strap a laser beam to a shark’s head.

But laster beams and cats. AWESOME. Our cat, Mojo, chases the dot of light like the crazy, playful cat that he is. Fletcher isn’t much impressed with the dot of light. He knows it isn’t something he can catch and chew. So he watches curiously. Not the dot, though. He watches Mojo. Fletcher knows that Mojo doesn’t know that he can’t catch the dot, and he’ll watch Mojo play just long enough to catch him completely off guard and pounce on him and chew. Laser pointer. Perfect cat toy.

 

 

© 2013 Debora Kapke

Science Olympiad Invitational

26 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Foodie, Mom Stuff, School Tags:

Binks and her first partner are in their first event at the 2013 Science Olympiad Invitational meet. They’ll be here pretty much all day with three events and lots of fun. I am in sit and wait mode. Ack.

In Other Game News

20 Jul 2012 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Games, Mom Stuff

We went to a “House Party” last weekend and played a new game called Telestrations. It was like a cross between Pictionary and Operator/Telephone.  We laughed a lot. I was reminded that I really like to draw. And doing so in 60 seconds or less is challenging as well as being uniquely manageable for folks with a busy schedule.

We also acquired Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot from ebay. We’d played this game with friends a while back only to find out that PlayRoom doesn’t make it any more. So to ebay we went. We got it for a pretty good price as we purchased one with a tear in the corner of the box. We’re not looking for a collectible item — we just want to play! So that worked well. Might have to pick up some booster packs.

And we got the Food Fight app after playing the actual physical game several weeks ago. I still need to try it out, but my daughter likes it so far!

Legos and dinner and Birthdays, Oh My!

07 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Foodie, Games, Mom Stuff

Just a note on two things.

Saying “Carcassonne” can sound a lot like “Carpet Zone.” When explaining the game, Carcassonne, to one of my daughter’s friends, she misheard the name of the game. I can see how it might work that way especially with background noise, but no we’re not talking about a game that has something to do with flooring.

Sharing dessert instantly lowers calorie count per serving.

Cleaning through old stuff and I found …

03 Dec 2011 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Mom Stuff, Uncategorized

I found I had a box of The Matrix action figures that I’d forgotten about. They’re pretty cool! And I’m trying to figure out if I should take them out of their original packaging and set them up or just leave them for now. I’ll probably leave them for now. I also found my Darth Vader head filled full of original Star Wars action figures. (So THAT’s where I put them.)

I found the onesie my daughter was wearing when she first learned to crawl. It has been so long since she was so small and yet it seems like just yesterday. Sigh. In her case she’d been mobile long before she could crawl by rolling virtually EVERYWHERE. Her only snag was that she would get stuck in corners and that would made her scream. So she didn’t crawl particularly early because she was already fairly mobile via roll power. But I vividly remember her learning to crawl as she had to navigate through a door to get to a bright yellow Tupperware toy. Rolling through doorways was a little tricky too. Ah, the power of necessity. She rocked! (Literally.) And, finally, she crawled. We cheered loudly! Is there anything better for a parent? On the planet? Her crawling quickly transitioned to walking at about 10 months old. Crawling so quickly passé. And low to the floor. All the big people walk! Cute. Smart. Coordinated girl. Getting everywhere possible. Nothing would stop her. Our floodline of child-proof zone moved higher. And I don’t really think that’s ever stopped.

Also found today — our cat’s, perhaps, all time favorite toy. It’s a piece of denim tied to a sturdy string which is then tied to a wee section of fishing pole. Our beefy, handsome kitty is a rescued cat and his original foster family sent him to us with this little toy. He loves it! I handed it to my daughter and said, “here, you might like this. It’s a cat toy.” As she LOVES our kitties. She quickly played. Our cat, Fletcher, played and there was much joy. For Fletcher it was much like finding an old toy from one’s childhood. (That feeling alone is why my Dearth Vader Head full o’ action figures is so … ) Fletchie played and played and played. He’s had more kitten play in him in the past hour than he’s probably had in the past 8+ years combined. (Maybe.) Truly, there’s a look in his eyes like a crazed teen. Oh, to be young.

Camp Firefly

02 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Mom Stuff, School

We survived day 1 of Camp Firefly. I say “we” because I sort of have my daughter double booked this week with Karate Camp during the day (I work) and a Girl Scout “day” camp in the evening because we’ve heard lots of good things about how much fun it is and I thought it might add to the summer fun experience. But this means we have back to back camps to the point where I don’t even know how we’re going to eat dinner all week. Perhaps I could be on to a new diet fad. No, actually, we *will* eat, but it may be less than standard dinner on several levels.

On another note, we’re just past the halfway mark for summer break. Don’t know where the summer is going. But even more shockingly I have friends whose children are already back in school! Yowsa!

Where did it go?

31 May 2011 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Getting Organized, Mom Stuff, Uncategorized and beyond.

My long weekend! My month of May! Where did they go? I have less than a day of May left, and the weekend is completely gone. But at least it was a nice weekend, and I can’t say that May was bad either. It’s just that I would like more of both.

Yesterday’s Memorial Day Parade and Festival was a burst of enjoyment even in the heat. A few of the fire trucks sprayed their hoses for the hot hot hot parade participants and we just happened to be walking by at the right time for a refreshing mist. We caught a bit of parade, slid slides, got a really cute handmade braided bumblebee rug and a few wee bits of pottery. Yummy grilled dinner at my mom’s…

My laundry status is at the ever-so-nice place where closets and drawers are chock full ‘o the clean stuff. And the hampers have mostly empty bellies just waiting for us to feed them all week long. I even managed to swap out some summer clothing and put away winter clothing. Yay.

My daughter had a ball drawing all kinds of things with sidewalk chalk–bees, giant ants, snakes, rivers, pants, cars and even bottomless pits. But at one point she got a little too enthusiastic and geeky. I love her pastel rendition of “stick people family.” But, later, she moved her work vertically, writing, “The cake is a lie,” on the outside wall of our home! D’oh! She even included tally marks which makes her quite thorough and it was fun and funny of her, but still D’OH. Luckily it was wash off chalk, so away it went. The stick family stayed though.

Honeysuckle

25 May 2011 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Mom Stuff, Plant Life and Balcony Gardening, Uncategorized

Last Thursday my daughter missed the buss which takes her from school to the after-school program and I had to leave work and pick her up. But the cool thing was that as I picked her up from school, she noticed there was a mass of honeysuckle blossoms near my parked car. So she said, “wait, can we pick some honeysuckle?” I agreed and she proceeded to share with me the way she and her friends had been tasting the honeysuckle nectar on the playground. So I shared with her the way I used to sip the honeysuckle nectar and together we stood there tasting a handful of honeysuckle blossoms. It was deliciously sweet and I don’t just mean the nectar. Funny how something which at first seemed less than convenient, turned into such a delightful moment. Last night as I was driving back from seeing a friend in Old Town, I could swear I smelled honeysuckle along the drive home.

Well, here we are again

22 May 2011 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Getting Organized, Mom Stuff, Uncategorized and beyond.

I finally finished Portal. Portal 2 that is. Found a few bugs along the way. But I managed to finish it just a few short minutes after my awesome daughter finished. Daddy helped her a bit, but really, she did an amazing job on her own! Speedy thing! Well, speedy at games. She takes longer on other things. Like the bathroom. She takes a reeeally long time in the bathroom. So I kind of win on that! Woo.

But I’m happy to have finished Portal2 because I like playing Portal and the fact that I finished means I was able to be playing and so was my daughter. On the flip side, however, now that I finished playing it, I no longer have finishing it to look forward to. Kind of a catch 22. But I still have some achievements to earn, so there’s that AND Portal 2 has co-op and I only finished single player, so there’s lots more to look forward to!

I’ll feel much less guilty about playing, however, when I get more laundry done as well as general clean up and organizing. I did manage to get some laundry done, go through some papers, file them in the garbage can, and affix about 15 patches to my daughter’s Brownie vest today. So at least I did something besides playing Portal 2. But here it is Sunday night. Tomorrow is Monday. (Always happens in that order, doesn’t it?) And, once again, I didn’t get as much done this weekend as I’d planned. Here we are again. I wish the dirty laundry would be GONE.

And ’cause it is STILL awesome:

Summer

19 May 2011 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Getting Organized, Mom Stuff, School

It will be here soon. I can’t believe we’re only a few weeks away from the end of the school year. Seriously, time flies! So much to do. And I still haven’t finished Portal 2. By the time I have a few minutes to play, I’m just about nodding off to sleep because, well, it is time to sleep. In other news, my daughter just finished days 1 and 2 of the SOLs and our troop had its last “official” Brownie meeting of the year last night. Binks will test for her blue senior belt in Karate this weekend. Our small ghost shrimp may have munched on our even smaller guppy fry. (Oops!) My daughter’s Ballet recital is right around the corner, and I have yet to see her costume. Is there still time to get one last Scholastic book order in? We’ll go on a GS camping trip to Hershey Park in a few weeks. Then we pretty much belly flop right into summer. Ack. About now, it would be really good to have a better grasp on manipulating space-time. Maybe I should just get a better grasp on managing time? I think I’ll take either one for now.

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