Amy’s Gripping Commentary

Comment by Mymsie

2008 March 28 @ 8:49 am

That is a *very* impressive body of evidence but to be fair, we should give your brother a chance to scan some wacky pics from your past. Just to be fair I mean…not for humiliation’s sake or anything.

Comment by Amy

2008 March 28 @ 9:29 am

Ah ha… but there are so few pictures of me being weird! And he would not have that many of them. OTOH, I have all the pics from his wedding slideshow…

Comment by Katie

2008 March 28 @ 4:05 pm

I might have a couple from the college years to help him out. . .

Comment by Matt

2008 March 28 @ 5:03 pm

Yeah, this offering of my “weirdness” isn’t quite fair. That’s because you have allowed very little photographic evidence over the years of your neuroses while I have spent a good portion of my life hamming for the camera. It’s hard to capture your rabbit obsession, punctuational quirks or rabid practicality through a lens. Please note, I don’t find any of this strangeness to be bad (I agree whole-heartedly with your rabbit view on life, frustration with crappy local businesses that can’t spell and saving a dollar or two), but to the general public you are equally as weird as I. I may dare say my, what I would call silly-weirdness, is even more socially acceptable to the general public than say, oh, keeping numerous litter box-trained bunnies in your basement. So, my retort will contain no photographic evidence, simply this: mispelling. Look at it… You eye is twitching, isn’t it? You can’t stand it. You must fix this blatant defiance of the laws of the English language! What if I, oh I don’t know, put it on a billboard for all mankind to see. I can do that you know, my wife sells them. I could also broadcast it across the Greater South Bend area by way of WNDU. Maybe I’ll even put it on the WNDU website so the world will succumb to this spelling disease. Stop me before I mispell again!

Comment by Andrea

2008 March 28 @ 10:40 pm

Innocent people are getting thrust into you guys’ weirdness competition. Not only am I obviously married to a weirdo, (like that was questionable) but now people think I’m a cavegirl. And by the way…NO I do not have a large cavegirl gut, it was just a “misguided” fake dirt smear that greatly changed the appearance of said area.
P.S. Amy, those quotes are for “you”.

Comment by Amy

2008 March 28 @ 11:06 pm

Matt: come on, everyone knows all those things about me from this blog! I give them evidence daily. I actually have to approve procedures at work that have misspellings in them, so I CAN let it go sometimes (but I point it out to be fixed in the next revision). And there are zero bunnies in my basement. Also, your wife says you are weird.

Andrea: Oops, and I almost didn’t post that because I didn’t want to drag you into it! I can blur your face (or fake gut), crop you out, put in the one where you are a nerd, or remove it. Or just let you be glad I didn’t really drag you in with the kissing-Bon Jovi poster picture.

Katie: You’re alive! I can’t imagine what pictures you might have. Camping and drunkenness aren’t weird, right? I will email you! Also, don’t YOU think Matt is weirder? You’ve met him!

Comment by Matt

2008 March 29 @ 12:42 am

I don’t believe I need to present any new evidence as to why you are weird. The stuff everyone already knows will suffice nicely, thank you. Besides, I don’t believe any of those pictures you posted of me will come as a surprise to anyone, either. I am well known statewide for my idiocy. And of course my wife thinks I’m weird, she lives with me!

Just because our weirdness isn’t hidden from everyone we know doesn’t change the fact that we are both equally strange. I’ve known I’m a weirdo from day one (you helped tremendously in informing me). I’m just surprised it took until the age of 32 for you to realize you’re just as bad.

By the way, if I only had access to the picture of you in a peapod costume (in high school!) I would have another valid argument in this ongoing battle!

Comment by Amy

2008 March 29 @ 11:51 am

You mean this one? I am transparent. I posted that last Halloween.

http://www.deitchley.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/peapod.jpg

Comment by Mom

2008 March 29 @ 5:26 pm

Children! Children! Must I send you to your rooms? If you want the world to notice the uniqueness (Preferable to weirdness) of Amy & Matt, ask their mother….

Goodness! Where do I begin…..
Matt - age 3- Flexing his biceps and posing like Mr Universe. When asked, Where did you get those muscles?” Matt replied, “From Hollywood.”

Amy -age 3- Tears well in her eyes when her grandma gives her a grilled cheese sandwich cut diagonally. Amy doesn’t want to upset Grandma, but “My Mommy doesn’t cut it that way!”

Amy - 1st grade - The teacher was out of the room when the fire alarm went off. All of the children began to panic, cry, and run around the room. Amy stood up and calmly announced, ”Everyone sit down and be quiet. The teacher will come back and tell us what to do.” When the teacher opened the door, the students were sitting quietly at their desks, all eyes on Amy, waiting for further instruction. (The teacher trained Amy how to lead the children outside.)

Matt - age 8- playing hide & seek in the upper level bleachers of the high school gym. When Matt realized Amy was about to catch him he made his decision and….jumped! It was 15 feet to the gymnasium floor. He could barely walk for days but, by golly, Amy didn’t tag him!

Amy - age 9- gathered the fallen flowers of the oak tree and placed them in two clear plastic bags joined at the top with tubing . She turned them in as a 3-D representation of human lungs for her science report. (If you’ve ever looked closely at oak tree “fuzzies” as we called them, they do resemble tiny aveoli-looking buds along the branches.)

Amy -age 10- given a choice of choosing a guinea pig from a pet shop or an unseen guinea pig advertised in the want ads. “Cage, water bottle, food and guinea pig. Owner can’t keep any longer. $10.00″ Amy chose the want ad piggie. Partly because of her practical nature who appreciates a bargain, but mostly because she felt compassion for an abandoned pet who needed a second chance. (Matt adopted the pet store piggie who also needed a home.)

Admittedly their father and I must accept our role in their “Weirdness” development. Beginning nearly as soon as they could mumble Da-da their father made a game that encouraged following directions and Geography. He’d say, “Run to the kitchen. Turn around three times and say ‘Madagascar’, or ‘Ouagadoudou’ or ‘Mogadishu’.”

For my part, typical was the time when the kids wanted to build a fort. Dad wasn’t available that day so I helped them build a fort from materials I knew. We sewed a fort! With 25 yards of fabric we wrapped yardage around tree trunks creating a multi-room fortress to make any sheik proud.

‘Weird’ is usually a negative description. But if weird is what we must call it, then I’m proud it runs in the family. I would suggest Amy and Matt are equals in being weird / unique. Amy is unusual from the norm in her scientific approach to life. She is practical, compassionate, and unswervingly committed to what is important in her life whether it be animal rescue or the preservation of proper grammar and spelling. Matt’s approach to life is less scientific, more theatrical, but no less committed and loyal to the important people and things in his life. He just documents his quirks in photographs more often than Amy. I applaud them both for their charm, quirkiness, intelligence, creativity, cleverness, loyalty, practicality, compassion, passion for life and the good sense to find significant others with the same qualities! If weird they be, then weird I love!!

MOM

Comment by Mom

2008 March 29 @ 5:58 pm

Oh CRAP!~ I spelled Ouagadougou wrong!! I even checked the Atlas to be sure I got it right. And to top it off I spelled it like “Woo -ga - do-do”. Mea Culpa. You can smack me with a spelling book if you like. I can spell, but I’m a crummy typist.
MOM

Comment by Amy

2008 March 29 @ 6:19 pm

Thanks, Mom. You don’t get to vote because you aren’t allowed to take sides! Besides, Dad might be weirdest, and you are certainly excused from the resultant inability to know what weird is after living with him for all those years.

Re: homemade lungs: The trachea and bronchi were made out of TP tubes. You could even inflate/deflate the plastic bag lungs by blowing/sucking in the trachea! After awhile that wasn’t a good idea because the oak tree fuzzies would have little bits break off and you’d inhale them, plus the cardboard trachea got a little soggy.

Comment by Matt

2008 March 30 @ 3:50 am

Congratulations, Mom, you just succeeded in making me sound like less a weirdo than a idiot. Amy made creative lung models… I jumped off balconies because I didn’t want to lose at hide and seek!

Oh well, at least we can all agree that Dad is the weirdest of all. But Mom has her quirks. Amy, don’t forget Mom’s throat clearing noise and our excitement when she did the triple throat clear!

I still say Amy and I are equally weird. Amy is more intelligently weird and I am just an Aaron Neville weird (”everybody plays the fool, sometiiiiimes….”). Amy, if it bothers you that I think you’re weird too, just take solace in the fact that you can beat the snot out of me at Scrabble any day or night.

On a completely unrelated topic, when I wrote succeed earlier in this reply it reminded me of that commercial when we were kids. Remember Amy? It totally taught me how to spell success! “S-U-C-C-E-S-S, Success, S-U-C-C-E-S-S, Successssssssssss…….”

Comment by Grandma

2008 April 30 @ 9:15 pm

To Matt!!!
Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to hold your crotch in public? (Unless you’re Michael Jackson and getting a million dollars for it.) So Grandma says “Don’t do that again, it’s gross.”

Comment by Grandma

2008 April 30 @ 9:25 pm

Matt—crotch comment is made because of the picture of you on a boat with one of your friends;