Fortunately / Unfortunately

The kids invented a new game this week called "Fortunately/Unfortunately". It's a round-robin story-telling game. The difference is that the contributed lines of the story must begin, in alternating fashion, with "Fortunately...." or "Unfortunately..."

"Unfortunately the car was made of cheese and it melted."
"Fortunately I was really hungry, so I started eating the cheese."
"Unfortunately the cheese was rotten and made me very sick."
"Fortunately I was near the Aw-school hospital."
"Unfortunately when I told them what was wrong they just said 'Aw'."
"Fortunately I was feeling much better by then so I left."
"Unfortunately I fell down dead on the doorstep of Aw-school."
"Fortunately Athena brought me back to life."
"Unfortunately I am so evil that this was a bad thing."

And so on. The kids can play this sort of game for hours. Even Fiona was offering up contributions tonight:

"Fort-n-y Daddy is bad!" [laughing herself silly]

They have many other oral games they like to play. "Ask Anubite" puts Noah in the driver's seat having fun with free-association weirdness and big words. "The Question Game" is their co-operative open-ended version of Twenty Questions. They do regular round-robin storytelling and a looser co-operative form of story-telling. And they love making up wacky lyrics for songs they know (including every song they're singing in their various choirs).

We are getting a new minivan in the next week or two. What I'm looking forward to the most (besides not having to get the brakes re-adjusted or fixed on an emergency basis all the time) is us all being able to converse in the vehicle. The kids will be able to play these games all the way to Nelson and back. The new Sienna will be much quieter (smaller engine, less road noise, better sound insulation) and unless Chuck is along we will all be sitting in the front two rows of seats so we'll be close to each other. The Ford simply doesn't allow for conversation in transit and that has made our trips to Nelson every week much more challenging. We've felt positively spoiled the few times we've taken Chuck's truck to Nelson in that we can actually interact with each other without twisting around and shouting and repeating ourselves.

The new van comes at a good time - our Nelson trips will become more frequent through late May and June as Erin begins rehearsing her Bach Piano Concerto movement with the orchestra.