— listening to Cashel babble at me about Buster Keaton and why Buster Keaton is so funny. (He got a couple of Buster Keaton movies for Christmas). “Auntie, Sheila, he never shows any expression on his face. He is always like this.” Cashel did a poker face. “But then sometimes, he goes like this.” Cashel made a huge shocked face, with a wide-open mouth.
— watching Cashel make Christmas cards for all of us. We each got a different one – and he tailored each one to our personality. That’s a lot of work for an 8 year old boy. Mine came in the form of a military broadcast – which I just think is so hysterical (and appropriate – seeing as I had Imperial Grunts in my bookbag at that very moment). He said to me, “Yours is kind of military, Auntie Sheila.” “Oh, wow. That’s so cool.” I said. Here is what it said (I will re-create his spelling – he is a very good speller, but you know, nobody’s perfect):
News Brodcast:
Shhhkk. “Is that radio on? Okay, this is Lehsac Yellamo and there’s a sleigh raid approaching O’Malley Ville! And here comes Auntie Sheila’s batch !!!!
Merry Xmas
From Cash, Bren and Mel.
This is the best Christmas card I have ever received.
“Lehsac Yellamo” is obviously backwards-speak, an O’Malley tradition brought to new heights by my brother Nadnerb. Nadnerb has clearly passed on this talent to his son Lehsac.
— For Jean’s card, because Jean is a teacher, Cashel purposefully misspelled every word. As he was writing the card, sitting at the table (Jean and Pat hadn’t arrived yet), he literally shook with laughter, like a little bowlful of jelly. It began: “Deer Onty Jeen …” and it kind of just went from there. The card ended with: “Pee Ess. Sennd mee aye tootr.” Cashel, man – you know what? That’s pretty damn funny.
— For Pat’s card, Cashel made every other word be “dude”. hahahahaha
— Siobhan’s card referenced the “Christmas Hannuka Kwanzaa express”
etc. The cards were genius.
— Jean sat with Cashel reading out loud to him from the big Calvin & Hobbes book she gave him for Christmas. She did all the voices. Cashel’s laughter – his true spontaneous laugh – is the best sound in the world.
— It was so great to be all together. Melody’s apartment is adorable – but we sure were all just crammed in there. A constant reshuffling had to occur – chairs moved into rooms, chairs to be moved if someone had to step out … etc. But her place is adorable, and it made me want to move into Manhattan proper. Maybe next year.
— Cashel looks so different with his big-boy teeth.
— I got to see the blow-up R2D2 chair. It is the coolest thing ever.
— We ordered pizza. Mum heated up the lasagna she brought. Bren and Dad went out and got a couple bottles of wine. We sat around in Melody’s kitchen and just feasted. It was beautiful.
I do not know what tickles me more- Lehsac or Jean’s card. My heart swelled with pride for your brother when I saw his son carrying on the backwards speak tradition. (I am even more in awe of that than your ability to harmonize…sorry) but that tootr thing was pure “jean-yus”.
Haha…that’s cool that he does those cards. Very funny. My niece(8) and nephew(11)are a gas too and it was a lot of fun that they made it to MN to visit three times.
Buster Keaton and Calvin & Hobbes for Christmas…. It’s been said before but that is one cool (and lucky) kid.
Awww, DANG! Sounds so warm, so human…so lovely. Wonderful. Lucky you all.
dave e – I just noticed your name. hahahahahaha very good!!!
Cashel sounds like quite a character. Big families are great, no?
The Prescotts don’t do backwards names, but we do this thing where we take the first letter of our last name and replace the first letter of the first name with it. Puzie, Pike, Pon, Picole, Park, Pathleen, Pames, Pim – you get the idea. It sort of sucks to be the only one with a name that begins with “P.” Sort of fizzles out when it gets to me. :-)
We also do pig nose family. “Mom, would you still love me if my nose were like this?” But that’s another thing entirely.
Patrick – my friends and I play the pig nose game!! “Would you still love me if I looked like this?”
“Uhm – gotta be honest. No.”
“Uhm – gotta be honest. No.”
That’s pretty much my mother’s response. Of course, she has said numerous times that if one of her children were ugly she would pay for plastic surgery. (Come to think of it, she’s mentioned it so many times that I wonder if she is hinting that one of us is ugly, but she doesn’t want to point it out if we are not already aware of it.)