O'Grimacey

It'll be funny memory some day, but last night:

2:00: The smoke alarm went off. We have four in the house, and they are all connected. LOUD! Never heard it before. After the initial panic, we discovered there was no smoke or fire or carbon monoxide threat. But we were still trying to SHUT THE THING OFF!

Like I said, it was a "peculiar" night.

ANYWAY, ONE of the alarms was triggering the others, but there was no way to guess which one. I figured it was most likely the basement one, so I changed the battery on that one, and things got quiet.

3:00: Zena starts having one of her problems again, so she never got to sleep at this point anyway. But we were all up again soon…

4:00: Alarms go off again! These are loud enough to drive you out of the house! We're all up, so I decide to just remove the battery from the suspected alarm, thinking if I "kill" it, there'd be a temporary fix.

6:00: Alarms go off again! Noise everywhere - I'm researching on the internet what I can do. Did you know you need to "blow" these off every so often? I use a vacuum cleaner and hoist it up on a step ladder, and "suck" all offending particles off the alarm. I think this did the trick. Re-read this part just in case any of this ever happens to you – it might save you a night's sleep!

So we go to bed, hoping to catch at least an hour's sleep, right?

6:45: A fire truck actually shows up at my neighbor's house. It's a medical emergency!

WHAT A CRAZY NIGHT!!!

7:00: Time to get up!

...As you can tell here, we were all rather tired today! Daddy got Madison to school - can you believe she never woke up through all of that last night? Daddy went to work, as he's the only one in the house that has to do that right now. This did give Mommy, Nana and Ba-Ba some time to go out and get fresh batteries and some compressed air. Later on in the evening, Daddy changed the batteries and sprayed the daylights out of those smoke alarms. We'd rather get some sleep tonight if it is all the same, thank you!

Today was another piano lesson, but Daddy took Madison this time. This was good - we had a great time together, although the lessons seem to be getting trickier. Things take more and more practice. Again, Mommy and Daddy didn't plan on it, but we're actually learning a bit on the piano as well!

Tonight's bedtime story was pretty epic, as Madison asked for a "made up" one. It involved Mr. Freeze who came in crashing a tea party. He evidently didn't want to share the ice cream, and wanted it all for himself. Fortunately, Madison is there to save the day (along with Batman, Robin, Indiana Jones, Marion Ravenwood, the Groundhog, and a little green frog we picked up today from McDonald's. We taught Mr. Freeze that it is better to share, and learned about sharing, and learned that Daddy has an outrageous Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. And just now, I myself learned that spell check on this blog knows the correct spelling of "Schwarzenegger." But apparently not "Ravenwood."

After school, Daddy picked up Madison and the two of us went to McDonald's. This was actually a nice little experience, just the two of us hanging out, and even eating ice cream afterwards. This was Madison's first taste of mint ice cream - they had this St. Patrick's Day-themed milkshake called the "Shamrock Shake," which was actually pretty good. Madison loved it too: she said, "Mmmmm! It's different!"

Okay, so I had no idea that this shake holds some sort of cult like status. It's evidently one of those rare food items that comes along certain seasons, like the McRib or Booberry. Daddy enthusiastically chases after both of those items, but never thought about this item before. Apparently it dates back to 1983 or so, and they even had a new mascot for a short time. It was Grimace's relative, Uncle O'Grimacey. I am not making this up. Just to prove it, here's an illustration below.

They even had a

costume for this guy, who looked just like Grimace, but instead of being purple, he was green. How is it that I missed out on all of this? This seems like it would have been right up my alley, but for some reason, I've neglected this most sacred of traditions. Fortunately, it's never too late to start a new tradition. There's even a website that tracks the Shamrock Shake, where faithful readers write in and post where the elusive item is available. I'll post mine in a moment, but this did make me do some research on the character Grimace, as I remember him in McDonald's commercials, along with the others. The Fry Guys were all after our fries, Mayor McCheese was the guy who advertised for Big Macs, along with some sort of police officer with a giant hamburger for a head - he was generally chasing after the Fry Guys, and of course the hardened criminal, the Hamburglar. Oh, and who could forget the pirate Captain Crook, always after those tasty filet-o-fish sandwiches? McDonaldland was a happy place when Mommy and Daddy were growing up, but they've phased all of this out over time, for whatever reason. All that seems to be left is Ronald McDonald himself, and occasionally Grimace - who has a very interesting history, apparently. I did not know this, but he was initially a villain. Evidently, he converted somewhere along the lines, sort of like Wolverine, Godzilla, or the Green Power Ranger. And, Grimace also has an extended family and an island, named oddly enough, "Grimace Island."

But alas, all of this is in the past, as commercials have changed quite a bit. We remember growing up watching these, especially on Saturday mornings around cartoon time. Golly, there's another road to travel down: Saturday morning cartoons. Over the last decade, that died down dramatically, as cable channels have emerged and you can watch cartoons whenever you'd like. But when Mommy and Daddy were growing up, you had to watch your cartoons on Saturday morning, pretty much. This was a crucial part of each week that could not be missed! I still remember the days watching Spider-Man, Scooby Doo, the Smurfs. Even into the 90's, there was the Tick and the X-Men. These days, Madison can watch cartoons at any time - today she was watching a few. But it used to be all about Saturday morning - those were the days!

This blog has sort of wandered all over the place, hasn't it? Blame it all on the smoke alarms. Yes, we didn't sleep last night...