So....(Twiddles Thumbs)

So...not much going on in my neck of the woods. Yours? Yeah, that's what you say, but I know the truth: riotous living and outrageous feats every day of the week. The big news here is that 7-11, that bastion of all that is good and American, is now carrying Hershey's kisses (with almonds!) and Ruffles potato chips (in strange flavors alleging to be salt and pepper and Texas BBQ). Things at school are pretty quiet. 3B learned about direct and indirect objects, something I had never learned about and had to have Paul explain to me. As it turns out, there is no reason to know about them unless someone walks up to you and asks what a direct or indirect object is. Umm, what else? Paul got a haircut. It was done by the mother of one of our most troubled students. She did a really good job. Also, her daughter did all the translating, giving warm English fuzzies all around.

Which is why I am spicing it up with excerpts from their last writing assignment. I have a set of three siblings in my class and, since the assignment was to write about their grandparents, I got three views of the same grandparents. They all agreed on two points. Their grandparents quarrel and Grandpa likes fruit. I don't know why, but I find it really, really funny that each of them think Grandpa's defining characteristic is liking fruit. Two mentioned Grandpa can only speak Taiwanese, not Mandarin. I'm not sure they (the kids) can speak Taiwanese. I suspect they can understand it, but I'm not sure if they can speak it. (Some elderly Taiwanese people only speak Taiwanese and Japanese because they were raised during the occupation and never learned to speak Mandarin after the Nationalists arrived. There was some newspaper article on how that generation is now isolated because kids these days don't speak Taiwanese.) Anyway, if you put together all of their essays, this is what you get.

Grandma:
Locks her bedroom door behind them when her grandchildren visit her in her room
Locks the door on her bathroom so Grandpa can't use it
Is kind to everyone but Grandpa
Quarrels with Grandpa

Grandpa:
Can't speak Chinese
Likes fruit
Buys said fruit at the market
Cuts it up and feeds it to his grandchildren

If you romantically fill in the blanks on Grandpa, you get an elderly man who shows his love for his grandchildren (with whom he can't easily communicate) by feeding them fruit. Grandma, on the other hand, is viewed by her grandchildren as a bit of a nut. They don't understand but accept her quarrels, but they are genuinely confused by her door locking. Grandpa is not the most mobile these days (he broke his leg in a fall) and has his own bathroom, so why would he want to use Grandma's? It would be great to hear Grandma's version of the story. Maybe Grandpa is always stealing her good soap.