Aliens Naruto Run Out of Area 51 on Monday

(They were just waiting for all the Area 51 raiders to go home)

This one is a little late, (or is it?) as the main event to ”Storm Area 51” was of course scheduled for Friday September 20th. 

“What event?” My ever-tolerant mom is asking as she reads this....(though there was a good bit of coverage in the New York Times.... So, perhaps I can’t use Grandma as a foil here.) 

At any rate, there was a fair amount of attention paid by our kids to the supposed raid on Area 51 last Friday. The huge online phenomenon manifested a good bit smaller in the real world. And sadly, we were not among the 400 or so people who actually went to the site...or the environs. 

But we were among the millions who were impressed by the guy who managed to get his Naruto run in the background behind a reporter from “Action 13 News”...and became a worldwide meme.

Naruto running: perhaps no more implausible or uncomfortable in the real world than the extraterrestrials in Nevada.

My son tells me that he can recognize all of the aliens on this napkin, so at least there’s that.

Back to School Napkin Portraits

Back to School Portrait:

It’s been a difficult end of summer around here. 

The summer itself was mostly filled with probably age-appropriate, incessant rejection of parental authority. This independence from authority primarily manifested as a refusal to attend to basic personal hygiene, and balking at the idea of going outside or engaging in any physical activity beside walking from the couch to the bedroom. ...And also rejecting any well-meant suggestions (ok, this is sometimes described as nagging by the recipients of the well-meant suggestions) that it might perhaps be wise to complete some of the enormous summer homework assignment a bit in advance of the weekend immediately before school. 

But this evening, I am focusing on the recently popular topic of gratitude, and reminding myself how nice it is to have the kids around now, and how much I will miss them in the future when I can’t nag them in such close proximity...and can’t spectate on the failure of my nagging quite so easily.

The following images are of the napkins without the kids, and an example of what happens after a stressful 2 minutes of posing for mom.

One can see many more instances of napkin portraits on the blog from many years past, but this is our first solidly profile view, so that is marginally notable. 

(See the all the napkin portraits over the years here:)