Aftermath of Area 51 Raid

What One Does to Relax After the Area 51 Raid:

I rely on my sons to keep me up to date on upcoming important cultural events like the “plan” to storm Area 51.... to liberate the aliens the government is hiding therein. 

I don’t think we will be attending, back to school and all, and so hear all the flights and hotels are already booked solid....but it was entertaining to think about what aliens we might be interested in bringing home:

Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, an Ewok, and the later day Ewok- a Porg, Gizmo from Gremlins, and one of the childlike but deadly aliens from Galaxy Quest....and a red panda, just because my son would really like to have one as a pet.

And what would you do once you brought all those cool aliens (and panda) home? 

Watch youtube on your iPad on the couch while wearing your skeleton onesie, of course. 

Our son was quite concerned that the Daily Napkins followers would not be familiar with Galaxy Quest or Gremlins, released in 1999, and 1984 respectively (ouch)

But he had seen both long ago, so I am going to assume some of the rest of our audience might have also.

Cafeteria Animals

Who gets to be the fox?:
The cool guys hang out in the cafeteria before school.

Our younger son was using a photo app yesterday to put Panda face "stickers" on photos.  I gather there are several of these apps like Animal Face by Easy Tiger with various animals to choose from.

Before he went to bed last night, he had told me, "No more animal napkins, Mom! No more Pugs, and definitely no more Unicorns." But he did not have any requests for today's napkin, and sometimes, like my sons, I find negative direction hard to follow.

There are three classes within each grade at our kids' school, and this year all of my son's friends were assigned to one class without him.  He only gets to see them for the 15 or 20 minutes after we drop off his older brother and before the beginning of his school day.  This time is spent hanging out in the cafeteria and the surrounding hallways, getting away with as much rowdy and slightly nefarious behavior as possible.  On the somewhat rare occasions when the boys are sitting at a table together rather than running around or lurking in the bathroom, I try, often unsuccessfully, to get away with taking pictures of them.

Last night I used some of these snapshots as the basis for the animal head replacements in today's napkin.  I gave careful consideration to which animal head went with which boy... yes, these are the important thoughts that I am thinking late at night when I should be sleeping... My son's favorite animal is the Red Panda, so that was an obvious choice. The Fox went to a friend who is partial to wearing blingy metallic necklaces and gold high-tops. After the advent of Marvel's Rocket character,  a Raccoon face seemed like a safe bet for another friend.  And, well, someone had to be a Panda, so that went to a boy who had recently annoyed my son by spying on him in the bathroom.

I was pretty sure that this napkin would irritate my son, particularly after the "no more animals" injuction last night. I showed him a picture of it on my phone this morning so that he would be forewarned before he uncorked it at lunch. While he told me that he did not like the way I had drawn his hand, ("I don't ever hold my hand like that!") he was surprisingly pleased with the picture and proudly showed it to the other three boys. The usually photo-adverse kids even tried to recreate the picture at the cafeteria table.

There was, predictably, some griping about my animal choices. The Panda was not so pleased, and Raccoon boy told me that I had better draw him as a Fox next time.

Our very tolerant sitter got the Panda treatment

Red Panda in Rocket Raccoon's Uniform

Absent a request from Ansel last night, I figured I probably couldn't go wrong with an animal in a cool uniform.
Ansel's camp group is going to the Prospect Park Zoo today.  Ansel's favorite zoo resident is of course the red panda.  I put the panda a Rocket Raccoon outfit for maximum stylishness.

Gizmo From Gremlins and Red Panda

Trying to avoid "Scooby Doo" reruns, we watched "Gremlins" over the weekend.

I think I must have seen the movie as a a seventeen year old back in 1984, and wasn't sure how appropriate it was going to be for my much younger than 17 year old  kids.  Like many other special effect driven movies from the eighties, it was much less scary than I remembered.  Although I suspect that viewing such a movie at home on a TV on Saturday morning with your mother there to prep you on what is coming up and reassure you that the main character is going to make it out intact makes almost any scary movie much less frightening.

(Note to my older son:  This does not mean that we will be watching anything from the "Alien" franchise any time soon)

My sons loved the graphic puppet violence.  Remember how the mother dispatches the gremlins in the kitchen in a motorized mixing bowl and the microwave?  I didn't.  Ansel was mostly concerned about Gizmo's welfare, he was not much moved by the plight of the human characters.  And Phoebe Cate's story about Santa Dad dead in the chimney?  Barely registered with my kids.

I'm not really sure what's going on with the red panda on today's napkin.  I may have to reinstate the one character per napkin rule during summer camp while I am doing two napkins a night.  Ansel wanted me to include a motorized Guinea Pig also, but I think I got into enough trouble with just the two and the strawberry.

Firebending Red Panda

Inspired by viewing "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and "The Legend of Korra," Ansel asked for his favorite animal throwing flames on the napkin today.

Ironically, he woke up with a high fever this morning (from both a bacterial and a viral infection according to the pediatrician), so his lunch will be fiery... But both he and the napkin are at home for the day.

Red Panda for Ansel

Ansel visited the Prospect Park Zoo last week and was reminded that red pandas are pretty cool even though they do not have super powers or weapons.  He wanted me to copy a napkin I had done for his brother a couple of months ago.  The napkin is packed away in a Fresh Direct (that's  a grocery delivery service for those of you who do not reside in NY) cardboard box on top of the closet.  And it's here on the blog somewhere...but neither of those locations offered immediate gratification at 11 pm last night.  And, unlike say a "Kid Nightwing" napkin,  the red panda napkin does come up on the first page when I google the term.  I did my best to approximate it, but according to Ansel this morning, it was not exactly like the previous one.  

Red Panda for Archer

Archer took a break from video games and other trademarked characters to appreciate the cuteness of real animals today.