Crumpled Home

(arriving home after going to the shops)

RJ: Whoah. Where is everyone?

Dad: No idea. I guess they aren’t back yet.

RJ: No. That can’t be right. They WERE back and then something went wrong…

RJ: … It was a fire! A huge fire! Smoke EVERYWHERE, filling the house! The alarms went off, and they ran outside!

RJ: … BUT THEY FORGOT THEIR PHONES! They must be driving, on the way to the fire station to let them know!

Dad: That must be it… And meanwhile, here we are, standing in a blazing building as the walls crumble down around us.

RJ: I know… It’s…. Terrible…

(Getting ready for the day)

Dad: RJ! Head upstairs, get out of your pajamas and get your clothes on, please!

(5 minutes later)

Dad: RJ! Time to get dressed… We’ve got to go out in a few minutes! Go! throw some shorts and a t-shirt on!

(5 minutes later)

Dad: RJ! You’re still in your pajamas? Upstairs and get dressed, now!

RJ: (sullenly walks upstairs) Oooo-kay.

(5 minutes later, Dad heads upstairs to help RJ finish getting ready, only to discover him spread-eagled on his bedroom floor in only his underwear.)

Dad: RJ! We’ve got to go! Why are you lying on the floor? What happened???

RJ: An emergency! Catastrophic climate change! I wasn’t ready!

(while eating dinner)

RJ: Dad, is there something so powerful that people can’t stop?

Dad: Definitely! There are lots of things. Big storms, earthquakes, volcanoes…

RJ: Oh! I know how to stop a volcano.

Dad: Yeah? How would you do that?

RJ: Well, I’ll just carry a big piece of crust up to the top and drop it on the top. If it’s big enough, it can stop the volcano.

Dad: You could do this all by yourself? The Earth’s crust can get pretty heavy.

RJ: Well, I might need two friends to help me.

Dad: If you could do that, I’m sure it would work. Good idea.

RJ: So volcanoes are not a problem. What else is there?

Dad: How about a big asteroid? Those are pretty huge.

RJ: My friends and I could get in jets and fliers and catch the asteroid. Then we could drop THAT on the volcano. We can fix BOTH problems!!

Dad: Nice thinking! How about in four billion years when the sun explodes?

RJ: Not a problem.

Dad: Really?

RJ: Yes. I’d just collect all the rubbish and crush it down so it was very hard and put it out in space.

Dad: You mean that you’d make a super dense shield out of rubbish and put it in front of the Earth?

RJ: Yep. Easy.

Dad: I guess that’d probably work too.

RJ: If you can think of anything else, just let me know. I have lots of ideas.

Great grandpa Maury went in for surgery on Tuesday. He’s had a second angioplasty and a surprising number of stents put in. Not bad for his first heart related problems (at 97!)

Grandpa Maury is still looking great! Grandpa Maury tells us about his surgeon during lunch, on his 97th birthday.

Everything went fine, but they are keeping him under observation to make sure there are no complications. Mum had the kids draw pictures and went to visit him yesterday. He loved them!

And of course, the pictures that they drew:

LR's drawing depicts a scene of devastation around an erupting volcano, complete with ash clouds masking the sun, portending environmental disaster... and a kraken attacked a ship.

RJ tackles a classic theme... A kraken brutally attacks a pirate ship; its quivering maw and writhing mass of tentacles preparing to unleash a storm of destruction..