What We Talk about When We Talk about Nothing

Early in the day on a day we will be going to a formal event in the evening
RR: Hey, I started getting ready early. I have my dress on with a hoodie over it.
MS: Nice.
RR: No?
MS: …
RR: Why are you looking at me like that? What?
MS: What’s wrong with your face, though?
RR: What’s wrong with my face? I don’t know. What do you think is wrong with it?
MS: Nothing….nothing. It’s just all shiny. Is it sweat? Are you sweaty?
RR: Oh, it’s moisturizer. I just got out of the shower, the moisturizer hasn’t sunk in yet.
MS: Oh, ok, then soon you won’t be so shiny. That’s fine then.
RR: You have lived with me for 14 years, and every day I am slightly shiny for 20 minutes after I shower while the moisturizer sorts itself out, and today is the first day you noticed??
MS: Um, I guess?
RR: Also, my face has looked much weirder on various occasions for various reasons. This is not the thing to freak out about.

RR and Brother discuss holiday gifting.
BR: Has the moratorium on me buying you unusual hats been lifted yet?
RR: Well…it’s just that you’ve already given me so many.
BR: Fine, fine, no more hats for now. You know, I’ve never given Mark a hat?
RR: …no, I guess not.
BR: But that one hat I always see him in is working really well for him. Maybe he doesn’t need other hats.
RR: Oh, actually, that’s not just one hat. That’s actually a series of identical and really similar hats.
BR: I see! Still, it’s working out.

Mark was reading this story on male friendship in the Globe and Mail and asked me what I thought of the following sentence: “The result of this conviction, that men must be the dominant presence in their domestic realm in order to derive complete satisfaction from it, is a duelling and untenable position that simultaneously pedestalizes and devalues the lives of men.”
RR: Huh. Pedestalizes, right? As in, “to put up on a pedestal”?
MS: Yeah.
RR: Well, I guess that’s more efficient. I’m trying to be open to new words by asking what they do for the language instead of just rejecting them out of hand.
MS: Right…but…when the cats climb up on my lap, are they pedestalizing me? Like…making me into a pedestal for themselves?
RR: Oh, whoa, so it’s one of those words that could mean the opposite of itself.
MS: Yeah.
RR: Like “inflammable.”

I got a COVID shot.
RR: Is it hot in here? I’m so hot.
MS: It is not hot in here. It’s normal.
RR: Can you open the window?
MS: Ok. [opens window]
RR: Thanks…. I’m still hot. Do you think I have a fever? Maybe I have a fever from my COVID shot.
MS (hugs RR): Oh wow, you are very hot.
RR: Can you take my temperature please?
MS (presses hand to RR’s face) Yeah, so warm.
RR: No, with the thermometer, not with your hand.
MS: We have a thermometer?
RR: Yeah, I couldn’t find it when I had the flu because I was too sick to look but after I found it with the barrettes.
MS: Barrettes.
RR: You know, in my Caboodle.
MS: Cadoodle? Are you just making up words?
RR (explains location of thermometer, it turns out we do not know how long it has to be in mouth for, possibly I did not have a fever or else we used it wrong, anyway I’m all right now)