Florence The Gender-Ambivalent Plastic Dragon goes to Whidbey Island

Yesterday my family met up with mom's friend Tracy on Whidbey island. Tracy is one of those people who won't let you burn oreos on the campfire or wear shoes in the house. And if you chew with your mouth open you have to "go outside and eat with the animals". (oh please. I live in the woods. That's not even a threat!)

So yes. Tracy is an interesting duck and a tad bit creatively stifling. It is me and my dad's job to keep ourselves sane by seeing just how silly we can be  before we have to fear for our lives. That silliness will come later. Right now let's focus on Florence.

This is Florence the Gender-Ambivalent Plastic Dragon.

I found it in Cole's room, and since i have been wanting a plastic dinosaur for months, I picked it up and put it in my pocket. (A plastic dinosaur is something I actually do want. but for my dolls to play with. Yeah. A dragon will have to do for now.) I decided to bring him with me on the trip. Here's Florence on the rock outside my fence

She got thirsty on the long drive to the ferry, so he licked the condensation off my water bottle.

Mom noticed that I called Florence a him and insisted that Florence is a girl's name. But Cole shouted "NO FLORENCE IS A BOY!" And that made Dad sing "Florence the genderconfused plastic dragon lived by the sea..." to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon.

And then we changed confused to ambivalent.

We NEED a gender-neutral pronoun!!

We got out at the ferry terminal in Port Townshend to go pee and stretch. Florence was very fascinated with the map.

The foaming trail of water behind the ferry. Florence Liked the wind in their plastic wings.

We met up with Tracy and her 2 kids at Fort Casey, which was very cool. Here's Florence standing in the barrel of a gun. or a cannon. I have no idea what it was. we didn't take a tour, so we don't know what anything was, which made dad make up answers for whenever I said "What's this for?"

This is what the thingie looked like.

Under all the gun batteries there was a system of tunnels. Epicly cool. I wanted to explore them all!

We found "Don't blink" carved into some wood on the fort. The whovians are defacing public property! That must make them WHOLIGANS!! hahahahahahahahahhaha

This is the part where dad starts making random stuff up. This small cannon (which wasn't pointed at the water) is for the unruly townsfolk.

This is the Time-Out Alcove.

"You have been a very bad boy, soldier! Go to the time out alcove and think about what you've done!"

"and that tallish building is where the aliens sat and oversaw things. they are the reason why we won world war 2!"

Once you remove my dad from 98 degree weather, he finds himself very funny indeed.

Which reminds me.

Interpretive dancing.

One time my school had to sit criss-cross applesauce on the gym floor and watch people from Seattle dance and read poetry about Martin Luther King JR. I tell you none of those farm raised middle schoolers understood it. Because they've never been to a place big enough to see different forms of art. So we clapped politely and wondered what the heck was going on.

Later I told my dad about the people in all black clothes doing what looked like a combination of ballet and yoga, and he says "AHA! interpretive dancing. It's where you can do whatever the heck you want as long as you can keep a straight face!"

So now whenever there is a question that either of us don't want to answer, we do an interpretive dance. Or if there is a feeling to be conveyed (we tried to portray to Mom and Tracy that it was time for lunch by standing on top of the fort thing and doing an interpretive dance on how hungry we were.) or sarcasm to be said, we do an interpretive dance.

This is how we tell mom where she left her keys.

I'm better at keeping a straight face. Dad just makes weird faces to add to the dance.

We bothered Tracy all day with our interpretive dancing and incessant snarkasm.

Here is Florence enjoying watermelon.

Playing in the sand.

There were a lot of perfectly white rocks on the beach, and we collected them and made a pile.

Florence liked it.

When we drove into town to get ice ceam, we walked all the way out to the end of a very long dock and saw a ton of muscles on the beach below. Then dad made that dadest dad joke all day

Dad: someone must have been dumping steroids in the water 

Me: what?

Dad: look at all those muscles!

Dad: *cackles*

Gazing majestically out to sea.

Did you do anything fun recently?

P.S. Florence and I were very upset that the Starbucks guy put sweetener in our coffee.

Is there anything more blasphemous than putting sugar in coffee?