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Edited on Thu Jul-06-06 09:16 PM by WritingIsMyReligion
These two are sisters, and they are FUN-ny. :rofl:
The elder was 10 in April (April 1st, in fact :evilgrin:)--she has flaming red hair, and the temper and instability to match it. A total nutcase, and rather hard to relate to, but somehow people love her all the same. (When she's not spewing fire enough to make Krakatoa jealous).
The younger was 8 in February (February 14th, in fact :evilgrin:)--she is small, blonde, and wicked fucking smart. She plays a hysterical game--around most people she is a pale, silent shadow. Around family, she talks and talks and talks, and totally cracks my mother and I, especially, up. She has more sense, control, and stability than her sister does.
I was babysitting this duo at the end of June for about 6-7 hours. Usually they manage to raise hell of one kind or another, but they were shockingly subdued on this occasion--I kept them occupied (using up all my embroidery-style thread to make friendship bracelets) and tuned in to CD after CD. For the hell of it (read: I was FUCKING SICK of the Beach Boys!) I loaded up some Steely Dan. I had tried before with Aja, which they mocked continually--okay, that isn't Fagen and Becker and Co at their most accessible.
So this time I threw on the newly-purchased Can't Buy a Thrill, and had them screaming "You go back, Jack, do it again!" and "I'm a fool to do your dity work/Oh yeah/I don't wanna do your dirty work/No more/I'm a fool to do your dirty work/Oh yeah" ad nauseam for the rest of the day. Their father, needless to say, was not pleased to hear the blonde screaming that ONE line from "Do It Again" over and over again.
We went on our shared 20-foot powerboat last week, and the cousins and I always perch on the bow and sing (read: scream tunelessly) along to whatever we feel like. I was tickled to see/hear both girls immediately dive into a raucous rendition of the chorus from "Do It Again," and managed to get them to sing it correctly, including the other line ("Wheel turnin' round and round") that makes up the chorus. I also got them, over the course of the day, to sing the chorus from "Dirty Work" correctly. Huzzah! 'Danfans at an early age! :)
A couple of days before the 4th we went out to Peaks Island, which is a very quick hop from Portland in Casco Bay. (To quote "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" from CBaT:--"A piece of island cooling in the sea." :)) We have enormous, long-lasting family connections out there, and I've been going every summer for several weeks since the age of 4.
This time I brought my CD player and Can't Buy a Thrill. When I told them this, they went wild, and immediately informed me that they had heard "the reelin' song" on the radio, and was that on the same CD? (The answer is yes.) On the beach that day we listened to those three songs ("Do It Again," "Dirty Work," and "Reelin' in the Years") two or three times each, and we sang with boundless gusto on the boat ride back intown.
On the 4th we again went to Peaks Island, and I again yanked out my CD player and the 'Dan CD, and the younger cousin, especially, sang along with me. We listened to the whole CD that time, not just the selected cuts, and while the tempestuous redhead threw a fit (she wanted to go fishing with some of our second cousins and her father) the blonde chilled out with me and the 'Dan. Then the truly funny thing happened.
The redhead, the cousins, and the father were bobbing out in our dinghy on the bay, and "Reelin' in the Years" came on. I had the volume on my CD player up to its maximum, so that the music could be heard without having to put the headphones actually on someone's ears--the sharing of the headphones among the three of us would have caused a ruckus. But when "Reelin'" started, my quiet, pale, subdued cousin jammed the headphones right on her ears and started to listen with a fierce intensity. The music was so loud that I could hear the music even with the headphones on her ears, so I could hear the music segue into Elliott Randall's stunning, rip-roaring, and uncredited (in even the remastered liner notes!) solo.
My quiet, pale, subdued cousin launched right into a fierce but entirely soundless air-guitar jam session along with Randall, right there on the beach.
And I was the only one who noticed! I almost busted a gut laughing, and the blonde gave me a pointed smile as she ripped along to the music.
The rest of the day I would burst into "Reelin'" or "Do It Again" or "Dirty Work" at every available opportunity, and my cousins and I jammed out while listening to these tracks when we were walking back to the dock to leave. I'm sure some people were pissed off at us for semi-broadcasting Steely Dan, but no one even really looked at us, and it was just too funny. And on the boat ride back, the blonde was humming the third track from CBaT, "Kings."
:rofl::rofl:
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