A Day for Daniels

Today is the feast of the Prophet Daniel (associated with the lions' den) and hence the namesday of The Daniels - me and Daniil Danilovich, my strapping young son.  We couldn't go out today because Madeleine was sick and Amy had to work, but at least I got the day off, and spent it at home with the young'uns.  We sort-of celebrated yesterday - Daniel and I went to church while the others stayed home with Ian and Madeleine in varying degrees of flueyness.  Then Daniel and I went to Cowabunga's, an indoor bouncy-house complex; we got there before 3:30, and Daniel jumped more-or-less nonstop until 7:00, stopping then only because it was closing time.  I was totally unsurprised to see that, on the one occasion that I visit this venue with Daniel alone, we stay as long as humanly possible, and even if he's shooting hoops in a basketball-enhanced bouncey house, or playing some game, he still almost never misses the chance to bounce between other activities.  Daniel konked out as soon as the car got on the road, also most unsurprisingly.

But that was yesterday; today we had our hands tied for most of the day, with Madeleine still contending with the flu, but she felt better today, so the kids and I went out to pick up a gluten free pizza, of which Daniel quickly ate much or most in the car, and we went to the grocery store to pick up chicken broth for soup for Madeleine.  Since it was Daniel's namesday, he got the one quarter I had at the grocery store, for a great big gum ball out of the machine.  He also got to pick a book from the used books box - the macabre haunted-house-themed one he originally picked was ruled out, so he went with a MadLibs pad - and he got to pick the movie. It was slim pickin's at the RedBox box for kids' movies - most were out, presumably because NetFlix and Amazon have become perfectly useless for their no-extra-cost streaming videos inventory (selection apparently left soon after competition's exit from the market).  But it all worked out:  Daniel selected an excellent animated film entitled "Primates of the Caribbean."  "Primates" is not a typo.  It's a movie about monkeys on a Caribbean island.  Ian is nonplussed that these filmmakers, like many others, insist of casting animals into the roles of otherwise-human characters (walking, talking, driving, directing traffic, etc.), but I must admit that the production is exactly as sophisticated as I had expected.  They're enjoying it now, and it makes an excellent backdrop for blogging.

All three children got candy at the checkout counter (it's almost as if the supermarket put it there because they knew we had to pass through that narrow strait to get out of the store legally with merchandise, like some exciting chapter in the Odyssey).  Daniel and Madeleine selected excellent two-in-one candy products- plastic bottles, shaped like baby bottles, with a candy bottle-nipple and an interior filled, instead of warm milk, with powdered candy.  It's a hybrid treat, because you can either eat the nipple-end like a lollipop, or you can exploit the nice warm saliva from the initial taste to pick up powdered candy from the inside of the bottle and use it as a sort of confectionary delivery system.  Two kinds of sugar-infusion with a touch of infantile regression built into the construct.  Freud could have churned out a new volume on such a wonderful thing.  Ian was initially reluctant to incur more expense for himself, but at the last moment, chose to get a bag of Skiddles.  He was unhappy when they turned out to cost more than the sugar-candy bottles, and stopped to ask me and/or the cashier girl why there was a price discrepancy.  Surprisingly, she didn't have any theory as to why.

As we pulled into the driveway, in spite of the 20-something-degree whether, the children stopped in the parked minivan; Daniel and Madeleine compared the colors of their Skiddles (apparently Ian shared), while Ian explained to me, in surprisingly thorough detail, about Wonder Woman's lineage from the Greek goddess Hera (or Juno, when in Rome), and Hera's corresponding lineage from Zeus, along with some commentary about Zeus's siring patterns.  Very parallel areas of dialog, in two parts of the parked car - and not a surprising detail out of our day's story, considering the characters involved.

Hopefully the celebration continues tomorrow with Mommy home from work and Madeleine apparently feeling better:  a movie (maybe "Free Birds") and/or lunch out tomorrow (presumably Vietnamese, knowing Daniel), and then, if everybody's healthy enough, New Year's Eve at Auntie's house.

(December 30, 2013)