Weekend Top Five, The Conundrum that is the Smile, and Anatomy of a Star Trek Smackdown

Rundown from Chimi-Challenge week:

1. Deadline to finish my WIP (Broken) is Wednesday night at midnight. I spoke to Team Tamale officials, and they are confident the book will be finished at 11:59.

a. For the next act, Team Gluten-Intolerant will finish her sequel by Nov. 30.

b. How is everyone doing on NaNoWriMo? Shellie? Eden? Olivia? Alysa? Hannah? Who am I missing?

2. We got our family pictures Saturday morning. We've been planning it for two years. The Photographer said for everyone to wear the same solid color like red, blue, black, tan or similar. We all showed up in different colors: Red, Blue, Black, Tan and White. Two years planning, and we still don't get it right. Even I know Blue and Black don't match.

(Ashton family throwing leaves in frustration over our inability to coordinate colors)

3. Our original photographer had to cancel at the last minute because of a death in the family. We began to think the Universe didn't want us to get our pictures taken. Then my good friend from high school Heather Zahn Gardner stepped in and rescued us.

Apparently, the Universe doesn't care if we get our pictures taken or not, only that we continue to struggle with the simple concept of the elusive "Smile".

Take 1Take 2

Take 3

Take 4

Take 542

You can see Heather had her work cut out for her, but she remained cool and calm.
Behold, here are Kid B and Kid C, looking cuter than our collective gene pool should allow.

4. Attempted to potty-train Kid B.
You know how babies get their nights and days mixed up? Well, Kid B is exhibiting the same behavior, only with potty-training. He sits on the toilet for hours at a time, and then gets up and goes into the living room to pee.

Apparently all the world's his toilet, except for the actual toilet, which is his oyster, and he'd never pee in his oyster.

(Please, Sir? Just one more diaper?)

5. The other night at Sunday Dinner, there was a fissure in the Galaxy. Did you hear it?

It all began when one side of the table uttered the classic fightin' words: "In the Star Trek Universe, the Gold uniforms signified command, and the red, engineering."

Well, you can imagine the Smackdown that ensued. (For those of you who don't know, a Star Trek Smackdown consists of two people climbing into a fighting arena with nobody watching, because nobody cares.)

The other side of the table answered with a, "Uh Nuh Yuh Did-enh!" (Translated: "Oh no you didn't" in Klingon). "Gold signifies engineering. Red: Command!"
Then they turned to me, the one with the iPhone at hand. I looked it up and found the source of the discrepency: Yes, we are all losers, no matter what color we wear.

How was all y'all's weekend? What did you do? Do you know the meaning of the Trek uniforms? Do you care?

Off to write at Border's. Team Tamale Forever!

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Aliens: I Believe, and an Awkward 4th of July in Small Town America

Belief in Alien Life Forms Status: Off the charts.

I'm the one in the middle.

I made an interesting discovery at a family dinner over the 4th of July weekend: The majority of Sam's extended family believes in the existence of extraterrestrials. Aliens.

One of them even had a close encounter of the 3rd kind. (What does that even mean, the "3rd kind"? If humans are the first kind, who is the second?) Anyway, when this family member was a teen, she babysat for "them". And "they" showed her their spaceship in the sky.

Below is their family portrait. I don't know why she thought they were aliens.
I'm all for aliens. I mean, my YA book ECHO is about aliens. Sorta. Hot aliens.

So, what about you out in blogosphere-ville? Do you believe in aliens? If so, what do they look like? Have you ever encountered one? (Please keep your stories on the PG-13 level. Teen readers, ya know.) And Kenny from NY, I'm not talking about any encounters you've had while under the influence of dentist gas.

HAPPY B-DAY AMERICA!

We went up to our condo in Midway, Utah, on the 4th. I love the small-town-ness of this small town.

In their main street square, they were holding 4 corners of music. The only problem is that in a small town, there aren't enough fans to sustain 4 separate stations of music.

So we plopped ourselves down on the grass in front of a guy who played the guitar. After one song, he thanked us for coming to listen to him, and said that no one was there before.

I immediately thought, "Oh crap. We're stuck here all night."

Thankfully, the guy was rather talented. So it wasn't too bad. But when it was time to leave, Sam stuck his finger down our three-year old's throat and made him puke. We were able to apologize profusely, and sneak away.

It was the only way to go without appearing rude, right? Right?

We didn't participate in the fireworks. We're doing that tonight. Besides, we live in a desert, and I was told not to by this guy...

"Torchy the Tool"

And I always listen to a talking surface-to-air missile, with a string hanging off his bum, holding a lit torch, sporting a maniacal smile and looking as if he needs to go pottie.

I heard that Smokey the Bear felt threatened by Torchy the Tool, and so he had him taken out. Now Smokey's slogan is "Don't play with matches, and don't mess around with Smokey the Bear."

The Darn Potty-Training Stickers Don't Work
Speaking of Kid B, and our original intention of potty-training him over the holiday weekend, I have come to the following conclusion:

Why potty-train ever? If I had it my way, everyone would wear diapers all the time. Even the adults. Most likely, we're just gonna end up in diapers again anyway at some point in our lives, so why mess with the stench of inevitability?

Someone gave me these fun stickers that are supposed to help...
They didn't work. I stuck them all over kid B, hundreds of them, and yet he remained un-potty-trained.

Kid B has been taking off his own diapers, and bringing them to us. So I propose that instead of potty-training him, we just teach him how to put a clean one on. He's halfway there. He could be the only kid in preschool who changes his own diapers. Teachers will be fighting to have him in their class. They'll create special awards just for him.

To tell the truth, we tried to talk ourselves into it, but anytime you start the morning wondering, "Should I try to potty-train today?" without a doubt the answer will always be, "Nah."

Someone on my facebook mentioned that bribery works wonders. So I told Sam to feel free to bribe me to potty-train the boy. I'm thinking a gift certificate for new Kindle books, or something like that.

Wait, he meant bribe the kid? Whatever for? Reward him for doing something nature always intended? That's just plain silly.

I told my niece there should be people for this. Like a business. Leave your kid with them for the weekend, they'll do the dirty work.

And now, I've probably spent more time blogging about the stupid thing than it would have taken to just train little B. But our house is clean.

So, how was your fourth? And are you in the market for a fun bribe?

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