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October 1, 2004

Hosting the All-Wookie Swim Team

Darn stinkin laws of physics. I just dumped a couple cups worth of water down my leg. I hate the feeling of wet Levis.

I was trying to be a good samaritan and change out the bottle on the water cooler. Because nobody else does. Any time I want a cup of water, odds are about 30% that I'll need to change it out. And my luck this time, the bottle was nicely overfilled, and sloshing gobs of water pooshed out all over as I heaved it skyward. Bah. I wasn't even trying to get a cup of water this time; I just saw it was empty. And goodness knows nobody else in this building is going to do it. All the 'able-bodied' males in the building either work in legal or IT, and so as you might imagine, it gets left up to the weak-limbed artists. And sure, there's a bunch of rough-n-tumble shipping & receiving guys back in the warehouse, but they probably go out back and drink water from the hose when they're thirsty. Whatever man. I'm just taking another one for the team.

[edit: somebody at work is probably going to read this and slap me around but good--not the face! not the face!]

I dug up my old Star Wars action figures for the kids this past weekend. Giselle and a friend of hers were excluding Harrison from some boring girl game, so I dug up the goodies and played a little Star Wars with him. He doesn't understand the taking-turns to pick your guys rule, and he kept filching men from my base. But I let him have some slack, as he's a first-timer. He kept pressing me to know who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, and I was trying to distinguish the Empire characters from the bounty hunters and the rebels. And then emphasize that those boundaries really don't matter when you're playing with action figures, seeing's how the Empire and Bounty Hunters had all the cool enforcer types, and everybody needs tough guards at the entry points to their bases. Well anyway, we played for a while, and never got into any battles, what with the fact that his men wouldn't let mine borrow any sugar to make cookies, and the whole game wound up into who wanted to eat whose cookies, and his guys could only have the cookies that Lando sat on because they wouldn't let us borrow any sugar in the first place. He thought that was pretty funny. Not that I'm trying to impress the code of Hammurabbi on the boy, but that's how Star Wars works you see.

Then Giselle wandered in and saw the 'new' toys. "Where did THESE come from?? Where were you KEEPING them??" She had to know what all their names were, and what they did, and on and on. And at some point, I was sitting on the can, with the two of them shoving men under the bathroom door, asking who was who. So I decided it was time. I pulled out the Star Wars (ANH) DVD and got them all excited to watch it for the first time. I was about Giselle's age when it first came out, which I thought was pretty cool...except Greedo shoots first nowadays, and that's not so cool. Giselle just couldn't get over "Obiwan Kenobi your my only hope..." [repeat....repeat...] She thought that was the coolest thing. Some friends of ours have a dog named Chewie. And Harrison kept piping up "Chewie?? That's Chewie??? Haaahahhahah Chewie!"

They sat there watching it, picking up the toys now and then and asking if that was so-n-so, and why weren't some of them in the movie. "Because the Medical Droid is in the next movie..." And the girl goes insane, "Can we watch it next! Can we watch it next!" But I'm pacing them you see. We waited until last night to catch The Empire Strikes Back. Giselle wound up calling the Wampa a Sasquatch, which got me laughing. Pop culture ruins a few things of course. How many times does "Luke, I am your father." get spouted in lame kids cartoons and stuff these days? It still surprised Harrison though..."He's not his father! He's a bad guy!" Giselle is about to lose her mind asking when we can play with the toys together, seeing's how Harrison and I got to do it last weekend. So we've got a date for this weekend. And we will work out the draft pick rules a little more firmly this time...I'll still end up doling out my men to keep the peace. But whatever. It beats playing Barbies hands-down. No contest.

Posted by Jeremy at October 1, 2004 6:19 PM