Claire Rocks.

Claire's home sick.
I'm keeping her company. Admittedly I do have my computer on my lap.
She's on her bed, feeling better... drawing, pretending she's a teacher, and making me laugh.

claire: Is this all you do all day when Matt and I are at school? Just sit there on the computer?

Betsy: No! (said this in a silly, over the top way... not defensively, at least not really defensively...)

Claire: Well, I know yesterday you cleaned the house but...

Betsy: (laugh!) Hey! How about all the other stuff? All the Give Us Wings stuff and all the time I'm volunteering in your school and...

Claire: Oooo! That reminds me! Don't worry, I've got a lot of money.
[And she promptly gets up out of bed, takes two dimes and a nickel out of her little pink piggy bank, walks into my room and puts the money in the little basket I have beside the bed for just that purpose].

Betsy: Claire, you rock.

Claire: Well, it doesn't really matter. I mean, it matters because I coulda bought stuff at Target. But I don't need it; and anyway, I've got like 2 million dollars in there.

Betsy: You really do rock.

Meaning of Heaven

While Claire snuggled into bed for the night with her freshly washed and still-warm "meema" (i.e. blankie):

Claire: Inhales deeply and smiles: OH! This meema is Heaven! And you know that Heaven can be two words? It can trick you. Because one kind of Heaven is like "oh this smells like Heaven!" or "This tastes like Heaven!" or "I'm in Heaven because of this whatever thing." but then there's the Heaven where well, you know, you're like this {she makes a weird face, tongue out of her mouth, eyes squinted shut}-- you know, dead and up in Heaven. So, See? It's tricky. Someone could be like, "why do you think your meema is like death?" and you don't mean it that way. See?

Betsy: Yes. I see exactly what you mean. Good thinking.

Claire: I know, it's trick-y. OK, let's read.

Take the Long Way Home

Claire and I dropped off Matt at his guitar lesson, and I finally realized that we can drive straight through the little parking lot to the alley behind, thereby saving the trouble of turning around and going back out onto a busy street. I was quite pleased with myself...


Claire: Oh! You're taking the long cut.

Betsy: The what?

Claire: The long cut. That's where you think you're taking a short cut but really it's longer. A long cut!

Betsy: I like it!

Claire: See how this is really taking longer? So now you have to turn onto this other street and all the cars are coming. Wow, this one really was a long cut!