Friday, June 27, 2008

Weekend 3-Way 2-Way

Ellie and I grew up in a family that enjoyed the culture of the dinner table. When we were kids, everyone had an assigned seat (Jane and I got the stools in the middle because they ran out of love chairs after the first 4 girls). We had quizzes on the state capitals, and we each had an opera whose characters and story were ours. Mine was Rigoletto, and the tragically loyal Gilda. My kids do not have an opera, but they do enjoy a good meal. However, they are speed eaters and my husband and I are shamelessly content if they flee once the eating part of the meal is over.

Whenever Ellie and the Mistah are here, we tend to make a big production out of dinner, and we try to engage the kids as much as possible to prolong our time together around the table. A tradition that evolved from this premise is what we call: “High Point, Low Point.” The rules are simple. You go around the table, and each person tells the highest and the lowest point of their day.

Ellie and Bill are very strict about the rules, you have to pick one thing for each category – and I can just see Bill saying “Your low point doesn’t have to be bad; it’s just the least great part of your day.” If your low point is pretty good, that is a D-A-Y. Pity the fool who interrupts before you are done with your bit, although you are encouraged to be as succinct as the attention span of the youngest person around the table can tolerate.

So, the 3-way for this weekend is simple. In the 24 hours prior to reading this excruciatingly long introduction, give us your High Point and Low Point. Join the fun in the comments, peeps!


Jacquie:


High Point:


Bringing home a new family member:



Low Point:

4:00 am, standing in the yard singing: "go poop! go poop!" while she stalked my ankles with lethal intent.

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Ellie:

Low Point:

I like to start with my Low Point (the rules include being able to choose with which Point you'd like to begin.)

See our Westy?:

Right there next to our house? (And by the way, what a sweet, bucolic little 'hood, don't you think?) Well, yesterday afternoon, our Westy started making a terrible noise. A terrible, horrible, transmission noise. An expensive, tragic, NOW-what-do-we-do torque-converter noise. Sigh.

High Point:

Remember this crane?

With the BEEP-beep, BEEP-beep noise that kept us up in the night? Well, it turns out the King of the Cranes is a friend of ours. A wonderful, lovely, brilliant friend of ours, who heard about our plight, and yesterday turned the crane's horn down. He got his electrician to actually turn the volume down, and then actually faced the horn downward, instead of outward, over the river, into our bedroom window.

This morning, when the sun came out, we heard a tiny BEEP-beep in the distance, like a whisper on the wind. Like a lullaby.

Thanks, Paul.

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7 comments:

Unknown said...

Ellie, your pictures are lovely but they always make me sad that I didn't get up to New England while the price of gas was still just a minor digit, rather than the arm AND leg.

Rita said...

Yay for knowing the king of cranes, that's a mighty awesome connection.

Me: High Point--deep cleaning the house, in corners, under stuff, around everything, including getting the carpets shampooed.

Low Point--Finding a waterstain on the girls' ceiling, meaning we're having a roofing guy out to give us our options later today (or tomorrow).

Anonymous said...

OH! And I was the eponymous Carmen.

Rita said...

And, how could I forget to comment on the puppy??? OMG, he is too fucking cute for words! Our friends just got a Cocker Spaniel puppy, so it's like puppies everywhere.

Rita said...

And, it's a she. I knew if I went out on a limb and made a guess without going back to read the text again I'd guess wrong. My apologies to the most obviously female puppy.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure which one of you fine ladies changed the title of this post from "3-way" to "2-way," but I do appreciate it. I was just going to throw something up there even though it is Monday night -- but now the pressure is off. Whew.

Anonymous said...

We missed you though, Beth. So did Mistah. He is still really curious about what your High Point and Low Point were.....