The good news is: Tiger passed his driver’s test and now has a California driver’s license!

The bad news is: Tiger passed his driver’s test and now has a California driver’s license! Just thought I’d warn all you southern California drivers out there. THE STATE LET HIM LOOSE.

Definitely time to adjust our insurance plan.

“Okay,” the insurance gal told me, “that’ll be an additional $208.”

“Whew!” I said. “That’s not so bad! What’s this I hear about teenage boys causing your rates to go sky high?”

“$208,” the insurance gal continued, “is a pro-rated rate, because you’ve only got a month left on your billing cycle.”

$208 x 12 months = yowza.

And because I am recovering from car insurance sticker shock, I let somebody else do the game-finding for me, and boy, did she do a great job! A little TOO good, if you catch my drift.

Birchsprite, you little minx, what little time I had available this week, you TOOK IT FROM ME. Holy cow. A high score of 4216?

I’ll have you know that my personal best is—um… (cough) 400.

Recently I wrote about how Squirt is going to become a famous filmmaker. It’s true. He’s going to be famous, make a bazillion dollars, and then buy his mom a huge house. On the BEACH.

Some of you said you wanted to see this movie, so I asked Squirt and he agreed to put it on my website. I edited out the beginning and the end, but only because it contained some personal information and not because of the poop jokes, no matter what you hear from my boy.

So here is the live-action part of Squirt’s movie, complete with his Engrish-style subtitles. I think it is very artistic but then I’m biased—thinking about that beach house, you know.

Link for feed readers.

Pretty clever, hunh? The kid did everything himself—I only helped with a few shots where he and the neighbor kid needed to be in the same frame.

Today’s Super Sabádo is about (Read the rest of “Super Sabado: Ay, the Ninjas”)

Another camera phone picture: this line at EB Games wrapped all the way down past several stores in the UTC mall.

So. Who went shopping today? Not me! I was just out on a walk.

SQUIRT: MOM! Push the button!

BONNIE: I did! You’re on. Do your thing!

SQUIRT: Arrrrgh! MOM! You’re ruining EVERYTHING.

(puts down the ninja sword, walks up to the camcorder, hits the PAUSE button)

BONNIE: What? There’s no such thing as editing? You don’t believe in blooper reels?

SQUIRT: (sighs heavily, runs back to his mark and gets into position)  Okay. NOW.

(Bonnie pushes button)

SQUIRT: HEH, HEH, HEH! HI YAH!   (lunges at neighbor kid Bob)

BOB, THE NEIGHBOR KID: ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!

SQUIRT: (freezes in an attack position, looks over at his mom)   MOM! Push the button!

BONNIE: All right! Jeez. You know, you could just say “Cut!”

BOB: I screamed like a girl, just like you said. You want me to do it over?

SQUIRT: No. You were fine.   (looks pointedly at his mother)

BONNIE: What?

Meet Squirt, who is all set to be the next Steven Spielberg—if his annoying camera crew doesn’t finish him off with an attack of Gross Exasperation.

He’s making this movie for his Japanese class. It’s about a burrito-loving ninja who hides behind trees and under the van and talks to a picture of Chuck Norris. The ninja also unexplicably turns into a pirate at one point before returning to ninja form to make gnarly burritoes in hyper-speed. Since it’s all in Japanese I’m a little unclear on the plot.

He’s editing it now. Meanwhile, back in the Wren Cocina, our turkey is in the oven. Twenty-four pounds! That should last us, what? Twenty minutes—unless the boys improve on their technique from last year.

Hubby and Tiger are out, buying more potatoes because the ones I bought a few days ago mysteriously disappeared. I was going to substitute with sweet potatoes but the outcry was so great you would’ve thought I was selling our national holiday out to Satanists, or something.

I’ve carefully examined Squirt’s movie footage (the stuff I didn’t take) for evidence of potato cannons, but the boy is clean.

So I’m taking this waiting-for-potatoes opportunity to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Be thankful, eat hearty, help clean the kitchen afterward, and at all times… keep an eye out for the ninjas. The ones with camcorders are especially dangerous.

This game is for you hardy souls who have an itch to procrastinate today—even though you KNOW your visiting relatives are going to go home with tales about how your rabid dust bunnies almost made off with Aunt Agatha’s dear little Fifi.

It’s a pretty easy game: you collect feathers and gobble corn whilst avoiding the fork. But the fork seems to come out of nowhere, so be careful.

Don’t let what happened to my turkey happen to yours!

And as a holiday extra, I can’t resist this Youtube clip of Adam Sandler’s “Turkey Song” as sung on SNL way back when.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve got a new cell phone that doubles as a camera!

It not only takes photos (and really good ones, too!) but it shoots videos as well. To celebrate, I made up an ultra-short movie composed of nothing but photos and videos I took with my cell phone.

Have a look and see:

And here is the link for all you feed readers out there.

2:15 pm: The boys and I leave for swim practice. Tiger drives, and I do my best not to say a word unless it’s

1. a positive comment noting areas of improvement since our last drive together, or
2. constructive criticism that will help him improve his driving skills.

An Example of Constructive Criticism

BONNIE: STEP ON THE BRAKES STEP ON THE BRAKES STEP ON THE BRAKES AIEEEEEEEEE…

2:55 pm: We arrive at the pool, despite my firstborn’s best efforts to shovel our van under the rear end of every 16-wheeler on the I-5.

3 pm: Tiger starts practice with Coach Scary. “Scary” isn’t his real name, just my nickname for him. He shouts a lot.

When he walks past my post in the bleachers, I squeeze into a little matronly ball of non-threatening motherhood in the hopes he won’t notice me.

COACH SCARY: GRRRRRRR…

BONNIE: I’m not here…

I used to be able to do work online at the pool because I could piggyback onto an unsecured wireless connection called MOTOROLA at the northeast top corner of the bleachers. But one day it disappeared and a secured connection called IRINA took its place.

I don’t like IRINA.

MOTOROLA: But I’ve got to be there for Bonnie! She needs me!

IRINIA: Get avay from here, you sniveling vorm! Dis eez my place now. Grrrrrrrr…

MOTOROLA: I’m not here…

5:15 pm: Squirt realizes he forgot his goggles, fins, towel, swimsuit—you name it, he’s forgotten it. We go into standoff mode as he tries to persuade me to buy new ones and I try to persuade him to dig a replacement up out of Lost and Found.

SQUIRT: But I NEED new goggles! I’m going to get into SO much trouble!

BONNIE: Lost and Found.

SQUIRT: But the stuff in Lost and Found STINKS!

BONNIE: I think half of that stinky stuff is yours. Lost and Found.

SQUIRT: Ew, I HATE Lost and Found. (paws through plastic tubs of moldy swim gear) Hey! There’s my swim bag!

5:30 pm: Squirt starts practice.

5:45-6 pm: Tiger finishes his practice and my sister picks him up and takes him home. Sissy must’ve always gone hungry in a past life, because she is always trying to feed us.

SISSY: Here’s a fresh-squeezed carrot juice, Bonnie. Drink it. You need it. Here’s one for Tiger. And here’s one for Squirt.

BONNIE: I told you you didn’t need to feed us, Sis!

SISSY: I’m not feeding you, Jeez! Get over yourself! Tiger, there’s a bag of popcorn and four muffins in the car. Hop in! Bonnie, here’s a muffin for Squirt after he finishes. Why are you looking at me like that? I’m not feeding you!

7 pm: My laptop battery isn’t the only thing dying or dead. My old cell phone bit the dust and now I’m using the new one to take this picture. The new phone has a camera! It can even take video!

I figure I need a camera phone just in case I get robbed or kidnapped or spot a space alien abducting somebody, so I can document it all. Unfortunately, the camera is kind of complicated, so it takes me a while to get it working.

Hopefully I’ll only run into really SLOW robbers, kidnappers, or aliens. In the meantime, I do have a really slow bulldog, so I’m not complaining.

Today’s Super Sábado turned into a kind of (Read the rest of “Super Sabado: Not that we’re complaining, or anything”)

Rather than a game, today I’m going to present Dony Permedi’s master’s thesis in animation from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

You should know that “Kiwi!” got me into trouble with my sister, who was a little upset because I didn’t warn her about the end. The end made me a little emotional, too, so I guess I should add this disclaimer:

If you’re at that time in your cycle when you cry at banking commercials, please do not watch “Kiwi!”

The rest of you go ahead and then tell me: is the ending happy? Or sad? Discuss!

Here’s the link for the feedreaders. Sorry, guys! Sometimes I forget all about you!