Laowai

You’re a rotter.
You nauseate me.
You’re a monster.
You’re a foul one.
You’ve got garlic in your soul.
You have termites in your smile.
You’re a mean one.
Your heart’s an empty hole.
You’re as charming as an eel.
You’re a vile one.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks.
Your soul is full of gunk.
Your heart’s a dead tomato splot with moldy purple spots.
You’re a three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce.
You’re a nasty, wasty skunk.
You’re as cuddly as a cactus.
You’re the king of sinful sots.
You really are a heel.
You’re a crooked jerky jockey who drives a crooked horse.
Your soul is an apalling dung heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable mangled up in tangled up knots.
I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.
You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel.
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile.
The three words that best describe you are, and I quote: “Stink. Stank. Stunk.”
Your brain is full of spiders.

Kathy didn’t feel great this morning so Bea and I had a morning together. After a specially concoted spinach omlet intended to get the kid to maybe some day eat just a little bit of something vaguely green, we spent the next hour watching the Grinch on my computer from Youtube. You can find the classic in three installments (just type in “Grinch”) so we did this first and then watched the “You’re a Mean One” song over and over again. Maybe 20 times. Every time “… arsenic sauce” came up, she’s say “Gunch More.” I don’t think she can get enough. Maybe I can’t either. The guy has a voice, the song is vaguely operatic and lyrics absolutely hillarious.

And who said I’m incapable of enjoying Christmas?

Some parting words: There are no standards for that to which you can dance. Beethoven string quartets take contemplation and pointing at the lights of the CD player. Mendelssohn Four requires big hand movements, slightly out of phase with the music. Opera causes raised hands trying to figure out what the heck Daddy is doing with this strangeness. Janis Joplin requires flopping the head back, rolling the eyes in a strange way and launghing in a disturbing manner. Jimi Hendrix causes strange back-and-forth running in the kitchen. ELP means bouncing up and down, trying to make as much noise as possible with her feet. Led Zeppelin causes crazy, disturbingly obsessive circles around Daddy that only cease when the music is stopped.

For those of you who don’t speak fluent BEA, there is a translation below:

Menkesh = Music

Gunch = Grinch