Monday, March 31, 2008

Eli 6.8

I'm still working on transcribing the Big Adventure audio tape, but here are a few Eli stories for you in the meantime.

***
Eli's a notorious staller in the morning before leaving for school. Plus, he's always outraged when Gloria tries to get him to quit stalling. Here are two of my favorite lines from last week:
"Mom! I was just making a SAFETY RAFT!"

"I JUST wanted to find a pole vault!"

***
We were eating at Bear Rock on Saturday. "Dad, if you get leprosy, do your fingers fall off?"

"I don't think so," I said. "I don't know a lot about leprosy, but I do know it's treatable with certain antibiotics."

"But if you were out hiking or something, your fingers would fall off," he said.

"What?"

"If you were out hiking," he said patiently, "you might be miles from civilization, and if you rubbed against a tree and caught leprosy, you couldn't get medicine soon enough."

"You can't get it from rubbing against a tree," I said. "I think you get it from contact with other people who have it."

"SO," he said triumphantly, "if you WERE hiking and the person you were hiking with HAD leprosy, you would catch it and your fingers WOULD fall off."

"Touche," I said.

***
On Saturday, Eli went to Main Event with Gloria to do some rock climbing. When they came home, I asked him how it went. "Dad," he said breathlessly, "GIRLS were APPLAUDING."

I laughed, then looked at Gloria. "They were," she said, laughing.

He was apparently climbing up the wall so fast that some girls (ten-year olds, Gloria guessed) started watching him, and when he'd reach the top and ring the bell, they'd applaud.

Charisma. It's what's for breakfast.

***
Today, we were driving home from school, and I was telling him about the trip his best friend's parents took last week. "So Mary and Jack and kayaking on Caddo Lake in East Texas," I said. "There were cypress tree groves in the lake, and it's supposed to be pretty creepy paddling through there."

"Are there witch doctors?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said,"but I know that in southern Louisiana, in the swamps, there are supposedly still witch doctors and people who practice voodoo."

"I know where witch doctors come from," he said.

"You do?" I asked.

"Hawaii," he said.

"I'm pretty sure voodoo comes from West Africa and Haiti," I said. "I'm not sure about witch doctors."

"Dad, I know ALL ABOUT boodoo," he said.

"You know all about what?" I asked.

"BOODOO," he said.

"It's voodoo," I said. "With a 'v'."

"Oh," he said. "Well, witch doctors STILL come from Hawaii."

"Dude, watching the 'Aloha, Scooby Doo' movie is not an accurate representation of voodoo culture."

"Oh," he said. "Sorry about that."

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