The proof is in the playlist

If Adam needed proof that his wife and children were maybe...odd ducks...he got it last night.  (He may not have needed proof.)

We decided that since he had had a hard week--stress at work, sick, coughing incessantly all night long, fun stuff like that--that we'd plan a little adventure for him.  We called it high jinx, as in, hurry and eat your dinner because we have some high jinx planned.  Adam complied because he's up for anything except he isn't very adventurous when it comes to dairy products.

After dinner, we started playing music from Pinky Pie (good little Pinky Pie--the phone that keeps giving).  Emma asked me how Pinky Pie got its name and I said it came that way, like a Cabbage Patch Kid.  (Because I'm one of those moms that always looks for a good teaching moment.) She looked extremely skeptical and said cheekily, "They knew you were going to buy a pink cover?"  Then she went on to say she was wondering how the car recognized the name Pinky Pie when the bluetooth of my phone was connected to it and I said, "Oh, I don't know.  Your dad set that up."

Emma always wants to know the why behind technology and I am happy to just accept that Adam is magic.

But speaking of Adam, I was telling you about high jinx.  And my phone. (But I'll avoid a tangent this time.)

The first song was Come Away With Me by Norah Jones, so we all went and got in the car.

Next song:  Piano Man by Billy Joel.  Being the smart cookie Adam is, he realized that meant go to downtown Everett where they have pianos painted by artists out on the streets in August.  We went last year.  We drove around looking for pianos and didn't see any.  I googled it on Pinky Pie and the pianos were there until August 22.

Rats.

So playing the pianos was the main thing for our fun little adventure.  The rest of it was just weird.  Since we couldn't do the fun part, we were left with just the weird part.

At one point, Braeden admitted that we'd thrown the whole thing together in 15 minutes of semi-rational thought except for Mark who was practicing cartwheels at the time.  I didn't think we should admit that but as we got deeper in, I realized it was a good idea to say we hadn't given our very best.  The whole thing was sort of bizarre.

After the pianos, the song was A Kiss to Build a Dream on by Louis Armstrong.  Adam puzzled over it before finally realizing he was just supposed to kiss me.  Next, (and this was Braeden's idea so I don't want the blame) was Beer Run by Garth Brooks.  Adam was completely confused and Braeden finally told him, "We're supposed to go to a bar, but not go in."  O-kay.

I assured him it was going to get a lot better.

But I wasn't sure.

The next song was Down to the River to Pray by Allison Krauss.  Adam drove across the trestle (and across the Snohomish River) and we played Come Fly with Me by Frank Sinatra so he drove to the little Snohomish airfield, Harvey Field.

You can see that this was really a wild time for the Davis family.

It was a beautiful evening though.  The river was serene and flat and there was a full moon.  Lovely.

The next song was Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane so we hit Highway 9 and headed to Safeway because the song was Shopping by the Bare Naked Ladies.  Before we got to Safeway, the song was Starfish and Coffee by Matt Nathanson.

Emma said, "This song is really open to your own interpretation." Adam, who was a really good sport in the face of a really weird family, considered his options.  In case you're not familiar with the song, here's the chorus:

Starfish and coffee, maple syrup and jam
Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine and a side order of ham
If you set your mind free, baby, maybe you'd understand
Starfish and coffee, maple syrup and jam  

We went inside Safeway and Adam bought one tangelo (couldn't find a tangerine) and a little package of maple almonds.

Braeden had speculated that the star on the Starbucks logo was a starfish so that worked for the song too.  (There is of course, a Starbucks in Safeway.  Just like there are slot machines in grocery stores in Nevada, there are coffee shops in every grocery store in the Northwest.)

Mark said, "Are the people that started Starbucks Mormons?"

Um...no.

He said, "Oh, maybe I'm thinking of Napoleon Dynamite."

What?

I don't know how his brain works.  But as I said, we can't blame him for the playlist because he was practicing cartwheels at the time.

The next song, after Adam got tangelo juice all over because that was one juicy tangelo and we all decided that maple almonds are the cat's meow, was Meltdown by Justin Roberts.

Adam figured out it was ice cream or frozen yogurt so in spite of my protestations, we headed to Cherry de Pon.  (I would have preferred Skinny Dip.) I don't think the yogurt is that good at Cherry de Pon and the decor is an affront to my sensibilities.  Emma hadn't been there before but as we were waiting in line she said, "I see what you mean.  This is ugly."

We took our froyo on the road.

Final song:  Home Again by Mike Kiwanuka. 

I know what you're thinking, "The time I spent reading this blog post is time I'll never get back."

Sorry about that.  At least I didn't make you spend an evening following a playlist.