Opaque

I told Opal we were having pizza with marshmallows and ants for dinner. "Don't be silly! People don't eat ants!" So, I did what any mother would do at breakfast; I broke out the YouTube video of Ray Mears eating honey ants. And witchety grubs. Opal was hypnotized. She suddenly had a new passion; Ray Mears videos. After school, we had to watch the honey ant one again. And then lots more. How to make a snow cave; the ping noise of roasting wasps in the jungle; how to catch octopus and eel, and how to cook eel, Indian style. The only problem with this is that periodically it suggests something else she might like to watch. National Geographic on Anaconda vs. Mammal and Anaconda vs. Caiman I'm OK with, despite lots of being eaten; but I'm not so much on the war videos on how to make a booby trap, which YouTube feels go well with videos of surviving in the subarctic by baiting red squirrels with fungus (and then squashing them, so it's not totally unrelated).

Anyway, after this wholesome family activity, we ate dinner, which she hated, so she had some plain yogurt, and then she decided, no wait, she didn't hate the noodles at all, and ate some, and at some point while she was eating cold noodles with cucumber I made some remark about her glass being opaque. Paul asked her if she knew what "opaque" meant, and she said she did, but provided the definition of "transparent". We discussed opaque/transparent/translucent again for a bit, and then Paul told her it was always good to ask about words you didn't understand. "I like buttery popcorn", she said, forking up another cucumber stick. We stared at her in consternation for a moment, and then it came to me; in Chicago, she asked about "comestibles" and it turned out it meant food and she got buttery popcorn. So it was not the total non sequitur it seemed.

Read to Opal today: Ty's Triple Trouble, Way Out West With a Baby.

The Running Book Count: 243 + 69 (last year 1170 + 121)