Monday September 22nd, 2014

The exercise:

Write about: the bean.

Only two more box days to go! Hurray, hurray, hurray!

Can you tell I'm about ready to be done with them? Just a little? It's that time of year.

We're off for Bowen Island tomorrow morning for two nights. Kat's training is on Wednesday so we're going to take our time getting there, leaving plenty of room for stops for Max to get out and run around if he needs them.

After that we'll be in Vancouver for three nights, staying with some friends and visiting our old haunts. So we'll be back on Sunday, if all goes according to plan.

I'm scheduling a post for tomorrow, as I'm not sure what my internet access will be on Bowen. If there's no post on Wednesday it'll be because I couldn't get online, but things should return to normal on Thursday.

See you guys soon!

Mine:

I was walking through the orchard the other day with Max, on our way back home from Kat's parents place to have dinner. Kat was with us too initially, but he was more interested in exploring than forward progress so she went on ahead to get food started.

He examined sticks and fallen apples, inspected weeds and leaves. Suddenly he rediscovered the joys of dirt.

"Make sand castle!"

I have no idea when he learned how to say that or what it meant, by the way. But we started making sand castles in the dirt - I'd form the tower, run a moat around it, and he'd destroy it.

"Make sand castle again."

So we did. At some point he was digging around in the dirt and found something interesting.

"Bean!"

Now, he calls a lot of things beans. Most of them are not things we want him eating, generally seeds from trees or weeds or what have you. I held out my hand and asked to see it, wanting to make sure he didn't get whatever it was into his mouth before I had a chance to look at it. He obliged, emptying a fistful of dirt along with it.

I opened up my hand to see what he'd found... and then it moved.

I was not expecting that. At all. So I might have freaked out a little bit and dumped it on the ground. It took a second to find it again, but soon we were watching a little black beetle crawling away in a bit of a huff.

"That," I told Max as sternly as I could manage through poorly restrained laughter, "was not a bean."

4 comments:

Greg said...

Sounds like a miniature roadtrip. Hopefully with less comedy value than a Hollywood take on the same... although it might be fun to see you being played by Chevy Chase, careering across Vancouver trying to find Max, who has stowed away in the back of a produce truck that will eventually end up at the restaurant where you make deliveries. En route you drop Kat off to her course while concealing from her that you've lost Max (requiring some skillful work with a tailor's dummy, a length of string, your best falsetto and a box of straw) while Max is bonding with a puppy (a dachshund named "Bean") and discarding produce from the back of the truck causing hilariously non-fatal car-crashes behind him.
Or something :)

The bean
Illiteracy amongst the spell-casting classes was at an all-time high, and King Stephan was increasingly annoyed about it. He was already the father of a legume thanks to such a mishap (the fairy godmother had intended to make the Prince the "dragon's bane" but, thanks to her abysmal spelling had made him the "dragon's bean" instead. Thankfully the dragon was strictly carnivorous, though King Stephan still felt guilty that it was his subjects that were being char-grilled and eaten rather than his son). He was not looking forward to the christening of his daughter.
"All spells are to be submitted to the Master of Ceremonies before the christening," he said, speaking to a hall full of only-slightly-disloyal subjects. "Spellings will be clarified and corrected, and only approved spells may be cast. And that is final." To emphasize his last word, the headsman behind him started whetting the edge of his axe.
"Where will this end?" called a skinny witch with a bile-green hat. "This is political corsetry gone mad!"
"You make my point most eloquently, madame," replied King Stephan, and the court tittered. "I will not be the father to another bean!"
"What will your daughter be called?" asked the Chancellor, seeing an opportunity to divert the conversation to safer ground.
"Haricot," said King Stephan.

Anonymous said...

Like most, ours started small.
Insignificantly so. Almost nothing.
But it was there from the
First smile you gave me to
Your helping hands. Your smile
Was water, your hands the earth.
The little bean that would be you and me
Grew under your ever watchful eye.
And did it grow. With you to tend to us,
It’s a wonder Jack is so renown.

Unknown said...

Since I was lacking in the creativity department, this is what I came up with.

Be
Everything
A person
Needs

Marc said...

Greg - that... sounds like a movie I'd pay to watch.

And that... is not a kingdom I'd wish to live in! Great fun reading about it though :)

Ivybennet - that's a lovely sentiment; I quite enjoyed reading it.

Nicole - I'm quite fond of acrostics, so I'd say you did quite well considering you weren't feeling very creative!