The love of family.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 11 comments link this post
While playing the game Cranium with family and friends up for Thanksgiving, my sister Janet body slammed me.
Luckily, there was a mattress on the floor.
We were both acting out (for our respective teams) the word "lightning." My nephew flipped the timer and yelled start and my sister promptly body slammed me and I went flying. She collapsed to the floor, laughing, the rest of her team yelling out things like "assault!" and "battery!" and "bulldozer!" thinking it was part of the game. I jumped back to my feet and proceeded to, like Zeus, shoot lightning to the ground. I'm a competitive game player and I'd deal with her after we wiped up the floor with them, since I was already so familiar with that floor.
We won.
My sister Jacqui caught the tail end of the incident -- the part where I'm 45 degrees in flight towards the ground -- on her small digital camera.
"That won't be going on YouTube," I threatened.
Sisters. No one ever wants to play Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary with me. Cranium is as close as we get. And I get body slammed. On tape.
The rest of the day went well. Janet suggested that if I held my cat up to her chihuahua, surely, they would become friends instead of the hissing, growling mess they'd been so far. The end result of this forced meet-and-greet is my left wrist, scratched. No further friendliness ensued. The cat, however, has lost his hair. As in keeping with tradition, the arrival of my sister means that Brutus will lose his hair to the clippers. He sits out in the room we call the "shanty", shamed and alone. Away from the dogs. Naked. Plotting my demise.
As is tradition, I threw together a quick "scavenger" hunt in which clue leads to clue throughout the house. However, after all these years of doing it, I'm fast running out of clever ways to point them to the refrigerator. This year, my clues included "Yo hablo Espanol. Woof" which directed the little people to Janet's by-now nervous wreck of a chihuahua. The final clue directed them to "the grump" which was a revealing litmus test of who they thought the grumpiest adult was. The only way to find the final prize was to begin asking "are you a grump?"
For those of you interested, no. The grump was not me.
My sister had me make a custom Neglectable Pet for a co-worker. I sewed off and on all day, slavishly devoted to bringing to life the true story that accompanies it. Slavishly slaving so she wouldn't somehow bring further bodily injury my way. I also sewed one for a friend who ordered one yesterday.
I, a truly devoted auntie, spent an hour chatting with an HP technician so that I could locate, download and install the correct codecs that would make the new HP computer with the monster screen play DVDs so my nephew could be enthralled with Napoleon Dynamite.
And I washed lots of dishes. But I didn't cook. So my family still remains alive and well.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Got a funny story?
Labels: brutus, family, kids, my life
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 11/22/2007 09:06:00 PM
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11 Comments:
You know you could make some money selling the video your sister made of the body slam incident. I would pay good money to see it! Glad to see you had a great day.
No funny stories here though. Just a lot of good food as I visited with three church families over the afternoon (I only ate once though and that was more than enough). It was a beautiful sunny day in the high 60s here until late in the afternoon when some showers rolled in along with some cooler air.
By 
Will, at
22/11/07 22:13
Quite a story. I thought maybe you'd use your karate.
No one here got tackled.
First snow.
By , at
23/11/07 00:33
Somehow, I couldn't imagine anything less at the Neidlinger homestead. Not exactly a Hallmark moment. My Thanksgiving was quite tame by comparison. Alas, no funny stories, but plenty of over-eating.
By 
Rey, at
23/11/07 09:13
so my nephew could be enthralled with Napoleon Dynamite.
It's important that the older generation pass along such accumulated wisdom; it's a vital role we play when we do such things.
The funniest things that happened down here in West Texas were the behaviors of the local flock of wild turkeys.
By Eric, at
23/11/07 10:43
The video is up on multily for you to see Juls, NO Youtube. That was a fun afternoon!
By Jacqui, at
24/11/07 08:29
Ahem.
That is still making it available to the general public.
Keep in mind I was acting like "lightning" and how I looked doing it.
:-)
It was a fun day.
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
24/11/07 09:33
I don't know what "multily" is.
By , at
24/11/07 15:11
My sister has a typo.
But I'm not going to correct it. I don't want the video seen. You'll get no help from me on this one.
Heh.
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
24/11/07 15:38
Not unless you are classified family.
By Jacqui, at
25/11/07 09:23
I found Jacqui's Multiply account, but I didn't find the video.
By , at
25/11/07 18:20
I'm not sure why the curiosity about the video, but no one except family with access to my sister's "private" area of her site can see the video. So...you can go to her site, but you'll never see the video.
I'd say "sorry", but I'm not, really. No need to see that video.
