Creepy Fish

By a show of hands, who else is creeped out by my Koi pond?

Yes, I have a Koi pond.  You can feed the fish by clicking on the “water”.  Go ahead, feed my fish.  It’s on your screen, scroll down a little on your right.   I’ll wait.

See?  Aren’t they just a lil’ creepy?

I forget they’re there and every time I’m reading my blog I jump when I see the Koi move.

Yes, I read my own blog.  Don’t judge, it is not what you think.  I read it because I like to play a little game with myself called “Hey, Smart One, that post you just published had 4 grammatical errors, 3 misspelled words and you left a whole paragraph out.”

You see, much like Marry Poppins I make  life a game.  More accurately, I make life a series of games.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Super Happy Pop Game:  In this game Player 1 pours himself a drink of a cold yummy liquid, usually pop, leaving less than an ounce in the container, which is then placed back in the fridge.  Points are earned if you can make another family member yell “Who drank all the pop?”  Bonus points are awarded if you remember to say “Not me, I left you some.”  Triple bonus points are awarded if there is a warm bottle of the same pop nearby and the other “player”, who is now Jones-ing for that drink has to pour warm pop over ice, watering it down and making it taste wonky.  Ah, good times, good times.
• Super Happy Toilet Paper Game:  This wacky fun game is a variation on the Super Happy Pop Game.  You get the picture.
• The Getting Ready for Bed Olympics:  Two players go up the stairs, put on their pajamas, brush their teeth, floss, wash their faces, go potty, wash hands and get in bed.  The first player in bed wins the game and gets to go to sleep first.
• Dark Room Bed Jump Special Olympics:   This super fun one player game is played by the The Getting Ready for Bed Olympics (GRBO) loser.  Ah, who’m I kidding? It is played by me because sometimes I still get creeped out that maybe, just maaaaaaybe, there is something sinister under my side of the bed so I jump from as far away as I can, in the dark.  There are no points in this game but the winner does get to wake up the  GRBO champ and giggle while pretending that I did NOT just jump onto the bed.  There is a very good reason that this game is called “Special”:  at 50 I’m no longer graceful or coordinated. (She said as though she used to be graceful and/or coordinated.)
• Chocolate Hide and Seek:  Hide a bag of Chocolates (Snickers, Dove, M & M’s are best) and sneak one into your mouth, chewing thoroughly and swallowing quickly.  Now go sit next to a family member and see how long it takes them to start sniffing the air and follow their nose straight to you.  One of my children would grab my head and actually touch her nose to my upper lip.  “Momma, What’s that good mell?”  Yes, not a typo, she always said “mell.”
• Uh-Oh!  We’re All Deaf!: You know how when you play a game of Tag one person is “it”?  In this hilarious multi-player game the person who is “it” is seated and “busy” in the bathroom.  Play begins when the house phone rings.  All other players pretend to be deaf while the person who is “it” tries to stop being busy, wash her hands and make it to the house phone before it stops ringing.  The game is over when someone yells “Are all of you people deaf??”
• Change Baby’s Poop Color:  I haven’t played this game in many years.  It goes like this:  Feed baby orange colored fruit and veggies in jars for one full day and her poop turns orange.  The next day feed her green fruit and veggie jars and see how fast you can change Baby’s Poop Color.  There was a very sad period in my life when I not only played this game but I also prayed every night that Gerber would start making blue, purple and pink foods.
• Dishwasher Mayhem:  Players have to figure out if items in the dishwasher are clean or dirty.  If they are dirty, any additional dishes in the sink are loaded into the dishwasher, which is then turned on, with additional points given for remembering soap! If items in the dishwasher are clean, all items are unloaded and points are given when items are put in their proper cupboards.  All of this is done without having to be told.  Mmmm Hmmm, we play this game ALL the time.  “Without having to be told”  I crack me up.
• Dark Stairway Phantom Race:  This one player race takes place in the dark. on the stairway, late at night when the house is silent and is played with a cell phone, glass of water and a book or clean laundry in your arms and one or more large poodles around your feet .  The object of the game is to go up the stairs as quickly as possible before the phantom hand lunges out from between the banister posts to grab you by the ankle and fling you to the bottom of the stairs, where it eats your still beating heart.