September 1999
Wednesday, September 1
So anyway, Dad's gonna go get Ben's lawnmower! He's gonna travel all the way to Ben's Native Land! We're all jumping up and down and cheering! Ben has dried his eyes and there's hope on his little orange face once again!
Thursday, September 2
Dad is just so cool! He's gonna go to Ben's Native Land real soon! He's gonna bring back Ben's Lawnmower, and Ben's making a little list of some other things to bring back like his rubber band collection and his velvet paintings of basset hounds and his album of Klesmer Classics!
Friday, September 3
Tomorrow Dad sets off for Ben's Native Land! He's getting his camping gear ready. He's gonna wear a grass skirt!
Saturday, September 4
Dad left for Ben's Native land early this morning! He wore his grass skirt and Viking helmet with the horns! Ben insisted that he take his bagpipes for protection! It was a magnificent sight seeing Dad walking over the horizon playing Ben's bagpipes! We all watched until his Viking horns disappeared!
Sunday, September 5
Today Weakie said we should all observe momentasilence for Dad. Pia said who?
Monday, September 6
Tomorrow is the first day of school! I can't wait! I have my plaid lunchbox all ready and I caught a fresh mouse and put it inside! It's all hysterical and it's banging around in there! Chickenloaf says be careful the mouse doesn't break the thermos bottle! Nini is packing her lunchbox with caviar, smoked salmon, capers, and Blue Stilton! Her lunchbox is beaded all over with real pearls! Pia refuses to carry a lunchbox! She says only dopes carry lunchboxes! She says she's going to pull her dinner from her pocket just like in that Jane's Addiction song! She's been walking around with her WalkCat and headphones on singing Jane says! Oooh Oooh Oooh! She thinks she's so cool but she's not cool!
Tuesday, September 7
Today was the first day of school! Weakie is our school teacher! We all stood up in class and said the plegallegiance and then we sat down and practiced our letters and Nini wrote pages and pages 'cause she already knows how to write but Ben kept squirming! Then he started leaping at moths! Pia leaned over her desk and whacked him on the ears but Weakie says we must be Gentle with Ben 'cause he's been traumatized! Then it was lunchtime and I opened my lunchbox and my mouse was gone!
Wednesday, September 8
Today Nini was our guest lecturer at school! She taught us FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT. She gave us each eight-hundred-thousand dollars and we invested it in IBM! Nini says this is good experience for us but I'm not sure why! Then Chickenloaf led us in some campfire songs, but Pia kept making farting noises with her armpit and Weakie made her go stand in the litterbox room! But we all kept giggling 'cause we could hear Pia out in the litterbox room making farting noises with her armpit! All except Ben! He was sort of in a trance today.
Thursday, September 9
Today at school Chickenloaf wore her little plaid skirt and sweater outfit and she came out of the bathroom and the toilet paper was stuck in her skirt and she was trailing a big long trail of toilet paper! We all laughed and laughed! All except Ben who just looked wistfully out the window. Then Weakie showed us a MAP OF THE WORLD. She showed us Zimbabwe and Australia! Also some shopping malls! There are 687 shopping malls in Mali alone! Pia said if that's a MAP OF THE WORLD then where the hell's Ben's Native Land? So then Weakie had Ben get up and show all of us where his Native Land is! So Ben got up and kept looking and looking and he couldn't find his Native Land. He looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and we all got restless and started whispering. He said it must be a faulty map! Then somebody threw a grape at Ben's head! Nobody knows who!
Here we are in Nature Study class!
We're studying Chipmunk Communal Behavior!
Friday September 10
Dad's been gone for 28 1/2 days! Pia says he's probably dead. Or maybe insane. Or maybe both! Ben is weeping and he says it's all his fault! Mom's considering selling Dad's truck!
Saturday, September 11
Dad's been gone for 86 days! Mom is getting out the insurance papers and she's making a shopping list! Chickenloaf keeps dabbing her eyes! She couldn't concentrate in calculus class this afternoon!
Sunday, September 12
Dad's back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He looks really thin but he brought Ben's lawnmower!!!
Monday, September 13
Dad's back and he brought Ben's lawnmower! Also Ben's velvet paintings of basset hounds! Also his rubber band collection and his Hummel figurines, and his Rosebud sled, and his Steubenware! Also his pipe organ! And his team of Lippazon stallions!
All of you should see the look on little Ben's face! He's a happy, healthy boy once again.
Tuesday, September 14
Today at school in biology class we were dissecting frogs and Ben ate his! Then he threw it up! Chickenloaf protested dissecting frogs because it's Animal Cruelty and she opened the window and let her frog go! But it was too late 'cause the frog was already pickled!
Wednesday, September 15
Today in school we learned French! I mean Franco! Or Francoise I mean! Anyway I learned how to say please clean the litterboxes in French!
Los Litteros esqua poopo ergo scoopa da poopere si'l vous aorta pleasurino.
That's how you say it! I tried it on Dad, and he looked confused! Chickenloaf said I forgot the hand signals that are so much an important part of the French language. So next time I said it and I tried the hand signals too, but Dad still looked confused! Also annoyed! Nini says I'm forgetting that Dad is illiterate, but I wasn't asking him to read but Ben said I should try showing him pictures while speaking French to him at the same time and then he'll learn French! So I showed him this picture and said please clean the litterboxes in French, and he got it! Now Dad knows French just like us!
Thursday, September 16
Today in school we learned Latin which is a lot like French! Nini says it's important that we learn Latin because it is quickly becoming the language spoken world-wide! Surpassing Sanskrit even! I learned how to say please clean the litterboxes in Latin! Ergo summa cum maledictus caveat poopo. I tried it on Dad and he looked confused but then I showed him the picture and he got it! Now Dad can speak Latin too!
Tomorrow we're learning Danish!
Friday, September 17
Today Ben brought his lawnmower to school for show and tell! Everyone was very impressed! He showed us all a big map of his Native Land and he explained that his Native Land is the chief exporter of lawn mowers all over the world! Then he fired up his lawn mower and mowed a few strips of grass! Ben looked so proud! Everybody at school wants lawnmowers just like Ben's!
On Monday Ben is going to bring his royal Lippazon stallions to school! I can't wait!
Saturday, September 18
Today we're all gonna put on our hiking boots
Sunday, September 19
Mom says Halloween is coming and soon we'll all get to bake pies and
Monday, September 20
Tuesday, September 21
Hackers! Hacker goats got into my Web page! Help somebody! Nini says call the FBI! Weakie says call the ATF! Pia says call Hormel and have the goats made into SPAM!
Wednesday, September 22
Whew! We had a major security leak and goat hackers got into my Web page! But it's okay now we got rid
Thursday, September 23
Okay the goat hackers are gone now! That was just awful! Dad just took a class in SERVER SECURITY and he is investigating to find out the Source of the Leak. I'm just glad to have no more goats!!!
Friday, September 24
I forgot to say that Ben brought his Lippazon stallions to school and they all stood on one another in a GIANT LIVING HORSE PYRAMID and then the stallion on the very top raised his hoof and said he needed to use the restroom. NOW.
Ben was so embarrassed about the whole thing! He blushed right to the tip of his tail! Weakie was very firm and she made him stay after school and clean the classroom floor!
Saturday, September 25
Today Ben brought his Hummel figurines and we all got to play with them at recess and Pia batted one right across the room
Sunday, September 26
I can't get rid of the goats! Dad said he made my Website all SECURE and he said Put the Goats Behind You but the goats are back!
Monday, September 27
I'm feeling really grumpy because of the goats! Also I'm bored! It's so boring! Nobody wants to play they just want to take naps and Ben is upset because Pia broke one of his Hummel figurines at school a few days ago and it was his favorite Hummel figurine of a kitten with huge, sad eyes! So Ben doesn't want to play or hunt mice or anything. He says he's going through the seven stages of grief, and he's only on stage two so it will take a while! Chickenloaf tried to glue the Hummel figurine back together for Ben but she didn't do a very good job and now it looks like a Hideous Monster!
Tuesday, September 28
Today at school we learned Danish! Now we all can speak Danish which is Dad's native tongue! At least we thought it was Dad's native tongue but when I said
he looked horrified!!! All I said was he has a very nice plaid hunting cap! Sometimes Dad is so weird! I guess he lied and he doesn't know Danish after all!
Wednesday, September 29
Today in Danish class we read Beowulf! We used Nini's Feline translation that she did for Oxford Press!
Beowulf was this Great Warrior who was deathly allergic to cow's milk! He took bubble baths and wore lots of grass skirts, and he carved little figurines out of Ivory Soap, which he gave to the American Indians in exchange for horses and gunpowder! That's how the American West was won! But it was really bad because it also started the Bronze Age and Tulip Mania, and plunged the U.S. economy into blackness for 180 years! Only Joseph Kennedy's fortune survived! There are lots of sonnets about this! Sonnets are these things done in needlepoint! To this day, all Danes know how to make cheese and do needlepoint! They embroider big elaborate American Civil War battle scenes all done in cross stitch, which they then feed to their cattle!
So when we eat Danish cheese, we're actually eating digested American Civil War battle scenes!
Then Nini showed us Beowulf's actual helmet! She says she bought it at Sotheby's for a song! It had Viking horns and plastic fruit and taxidermized song birds all over it, and it had a lovely mauve veil and matching gloves!
The Danish culture is rich and fascinating.
Thursday, September 30
Today at school we carved herring sculptures and Chickenloaf brought some videotapes of Dad's favorite Danish TV show, "That Darned Viking" and we got to watch it during Danish class! It was so funny we were all howling and slapping the floor! See there's this Viking guy who is tired of being a big-city lawyer so he gets shipwrecked on this Desert Island and goes back in time in a DeLorean and falls in love
