FAR Future, Episode 49: La Imagen se Escapa del Marco

Rene gets his own post…

Saturday, October 31, 2015
La Imagen se Escapa del Marco

Hola, y'all. I was playing around on the computer today, and the Internet was up. I asked Farf-Dad if he had something he wanted to post, and he said there was a lot he had to say but hadn't written anything down. He was busy decorating for Halloween, he said, but he logged into the blog and said something about throwing me the keys and being careful. I guess that's a metaphor, posting in his blog's like driving his car. So if anyone's reading, this is Rene.

Farf-Dad had the sex talk with all of us a while ago, I guess it was because the grownups are all worried about Kim and Christina. That was really weird. He said he thought I'd be the easiest one to talk to first, but he wasn't so sure after. I think he got upset when he found out I told the other guys about it, but we don't hide stuff from each other. He was telling me about how people make babies, and how we have to really be careful because there's already too many people in the world and stuff. But I knew what makes babies already, and I said I wasn't going to do anything stupid. But when I see what's happening with Kim and Christina, maybe he's right. Christina's really smart. I mean, Farf-Dad had to do some stuff so she could take college classes for biochemistry on the Internet. But when she's around Kim, and they're not drawing, she doesn't act really smart.

Kim and Christina are boyfriend-girlfriend now, but they say they're trying to be friends first. Maybe they just want to keep the grownups from freaking out more. I don't get it though -- I mean, Serena's getting pretty and all that, but it's still easy to be just friends with her. Both of us are OK with that. She said she wouldn't mind if we were boyfriend-girlfriend and neither would I, but maybe the grownups would have a nuclear freak-out if we started doing stuff too. Maybe it's because they're artists or something, they're weird that way. But most of the time when they're together, they're just drawing stuff. They rub their feet together when they're drawing and get really close together and things like that, but I haven't caught them kissing or anything. Mama said to watch them, and I try to. But if they’re doing anything, they're sneaking off when nobody's paying attention, and I don't think any of the grownups ever stop watching them. Kim says Christina's smarter than he is, but she's still too young to be a serious girlfriend. He says he's not ready to be a serious boyfriend either, but I think he's lying. He also said he's afraid he'll hurt Christina, and he's afraid of what the grownups would say. Farf-Dad says he's trying to be responsible, but he also says that's asking a lot from a teenager. (¡Muy gracias, padre-Farf!)

Anyway, Kim and Christina have been planning this big mural in the stairwell for most of the year, and Farf-Dad traded some stuff for a scaffold about a month ago so they could paint all the way up. By the time they got the scaffold, they knew exactly what they wanted to do, so they're almost done. It's really cool. They used pencils to sketch it out for a couple of days, then they started painting and it was fast. There's this big tree they put in front of mountains, a blimp over the mountains, and a house that looks like FAR Manor. They painted themselves kissing under the tree, and me and Serena with laptops and a solar panel -- that was funny! They painted a sun and clouds on the ceiling. Kim said if there was a light in the ceiling, they would have painted the sun around it.

They made some money at the festival in town this month. We can't go, but Kim took some of his and Christina's sketches and sold them. Farf-Dad said they didn't make a lot of money, but they made enough to pay for the booth space and the matte boards and had some left over. That's cool. It's hard to make money now, and drawings have to be really good to sell. Kim said he did some sketches of people for pay too, but he wished Christina was there. To help. (Yeah right. :-) I wish I could have gone. Kim said they had a bunch of really old race cars sitting out there, and they started all of them for a few minutes at noon. He said it hurt his ears with the noise they made.

Farf-Dad laughed at part of the mural. The tree has a branch that goes around the corner of the wall. Christina drew that part, I was watching them when she did it, and she put some writing around one of the leaves. Farf-Dad had to climb up on the scaffold to read it. She wrote, “La imagen se escapa del marco.” (The picture escapes the frame.) I don't know why he thought that was so funny. It looks a little weird, I think. But he didn't laugh at them kissing under the big tree. Maybe they're as good as they want to be. They draw stuff that the kids like, and stuff the adults like. But I think Farf-Dad was the only one of the grownups who saw the writing. The other grownups said the painting was really nice, and it was a really good job, and that was all they said. I think Mama figured out who the couple was under the tree, but she didn't say anything. If Papa didn't see it, she probably told him. I didn't see who painted that part, but I bet it was Christina. One of the pictures Kim sold was of them kissing on a stump in the middle of a forest, and Christina drew that too. You couldn't see their faces, but you could tell who it was from her hair, and she wouldn't draw herself kissing anybody but Kim.

We're all back in school now. Farf-Dad's real daughter got home OK and she's a teacher, so she's working with us. She tries real hard to teach Christina, but I think she needs to be in college or something. She's just so smart. But she does OK with everyone else. Her and Farf-Dad like to play jokes on each other, and it's funny. Farf-Dad helps Serena and me with our writing because he does a lot of it, and he said he wished his dad or brother were here to give Kim and Christina art lessons. He got all excited about some kind of phone she brought with her and gave to him, but I guess he'll write about it if he wants to.

I hope everyone who's reading this is doing OK. Maybe I'll get to do this again soon.

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