DANCING IN THE RAIN

MONDAY, JUNE 08, 2009 This morning Niki called and asked if I would be interested in going with her to pick out a couple of urn pots and some flowers for their front porch. She said she and the kids wouldn’t be ready to go until the kids wake up from their naps around noon. I showed up at about that time. We started out going to Mark Anthony’s Italian restaurant for lunch. Shortly before our entrees arrived, Corey called. He was hoping I was somewhere near home so I could meet Stacey with a new shirt for him. He did it again; he spilled lunch on the shirt he was wearing; salsa if I remember correctly. I must confess. I am no better. I do it often. We decided to meet at JC Penney’s at the South Town mall to get a new shirt. They are having a half price sale. We met at Penney’s after we finished eating. Corey was going on an appointment with one of his new agents and of course needed to look professional. From there, we (sans Corey) drove to Sam’s Club and picked up two black urns/pots. After that we went to Home Depot on 12600 and Bangerter and bought two hanging pots. Niki decided to take the already organized plants in the hanging pot, take them out enmass and transfer them to the new pots. It appears to be working well. Alexa of course helped with the work. At one point she said to me (I don’t remember the exact words.) “You do (?), I’ll do (?) and you say, ‘Good job Alexa!’” It started raining about the time we were finishing the flower job. There was some thunder and lightening though not too close. Alexa was in heaven running and dancing in the rain. She even kept talking about “dancing in the rain”. Niki ran for her camera and got a few good shots. Alexa started teasing her. When Niki, standing out of the rain at the garage door asked her to smile, Alexa would laugh and say no and run around to the front door. When Niki showed up at the front door with her camera Alexa would laugh again and run around to the garage. We went through this several times. Alexa and I were pretty wet when I gave up and went home.

AUBURN, CALIFORNIA BOUND

SATURDAY, JUNE 06, 2009 Thursday morning I hopped in a U-Haul (Penske) truck here in Saratoga Springs and headed out for Auburn, California. Francesca Saboe, A ward member and her twelve year old son Dustin were moving. I guess she is originally from that area or at least has connections there. She is a widow. Her husband Scott was killed in Mosul, Iraq 15 November, 2003. She had a few things left to pack in her pickup truck. She told me to go ahead and that she would leave in a little while and catch up—RIGHT! Dustin rode with me back to their house from where we got the truck. He wanted to ride in the truck with me to California. His mother said he could after they caught up with me. I called her from Elko, Nevada at around 1:30. They were just leaving. She had packed her pickup—unpacked and packed it again. She said they looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. Hmm! I needed to refuel. She said she would repay me. I filled the tank and headed out again. An hour or two before reaching Reno a little white car a few hundred yards ahead of me suddenly swerved to the right. She must have hit the rumble strip at that point. She over corrected and flew across the two lanes at a ninety degree angle, still at freeway speed and tore off into the meridian. There was a cloud of dust so thick I could not see a thing. Fortunately the east bound lanes were several hundred yards away at that point. When I got to where they were, the car had turned around and was stopped not too far from the westbound lanes again and two women were standing outside the car hugging each other. The car looked a bit beat up, especially in the front but there were two other stopped vehicles so I kept on driving. A while later Dustin called me on his cell phone lamenting not being with me. It is a good thing he wasn’t with me as by the time I reached their Auburn home they were still three hours behind, and I had had to refuel again in Sparks. That time I only put in enough to safely reach Auburn. She said she would send me a check for the $135.00 but who knows if that will actually happen. Oh well! Wednesday I called Janette, my niece in Roseville and told her what I was doing. She said she would meet me in Auburn and I could spend the night with her and her family. She did and we had a nice visit. They have a lovely family with four cute kids. Eric will be a senior at Roseville high school next year, Nina is thirteen, Adam is ten (or is it eleven), and Kate is eight. Kate was on my lap or sitting next to me that night and again the next morning before school with her webkinz (little stuffed animals) yakking up a storm. Yesterday morning after we dropped Adam and Kate off a school, Janette drove me around the area and showed me the home my parents lived in, in Rocklin, Gerald’s old meat shop, a couple of the housed he and Pauling lived in etc., then she dropped me off at the Sacramento Airport for my flight home. We had a good long talk as we drove. Judy picked my up in Salt Lake and we drove to Chris and Sierra’s and helped them and Niki get ready for Sierra’s Birthday party. Judy and Niki worked downstairs with the food, decorations etc. I helped Chris put up some wallpaper in Sierra’s bedroom. It turned out really nice. Sierra’s friends came, we excused ourselves and Judy and I drove to The Old Spaghetti Factory to eat. Judy drove us home; I hit the pillow and crashed.

BABYSITTING AT THE POOL

MONDAY, JUNE 01, 2009 Today was the first day of summer vacation in the Alpine School District and Stacey had to work. That meant Grandpa spent the day babysitting. I was given the option of having Jayden and Bailey at our place or me spending the day at theirs. I opted to have them come here. It must have been 9:30ish that Stacey dropped them off. We donned our suits, Jayden grabbed the pool key and we were at the pool at about 9:45 a.m. diving much of the time though they did a lot of wrestling with Grandpa too. We were there for about an hour when they decided they needed to eat more than swim. I made waffles from scratch and Jayden made eggs. He called it boiling but what he did was crack and drop three eggs into some butter in a frying pan and sort of stir them. When I mentioned that he got a piece of shell in it, he said, “That’s ok, I like shell!” He ate all three eggs as well as some waffles. Bailey ate lots of waffles. I think they are on the verge of a growing spurt. Jayden saw my glucose meter and announced he needed to “check my blood sugar.” He had me supervise his doing it including installing a new lancet, and then he poked my finger and checked my blood sugar too. At the pool Jayden was talking to a boy who mentioned that he was getting $10.00 for watering some plants for someone, so when we got home, Jayden watered our hanging plants and sprinkled a little water on a few plants in the flower beds and announced that I owed him $76.00. He and Bailey are again amazing me at how well they are reading. We put the video, Bolt into the DVD player in our bedroom and we soon fell asleep. When we woke up we decided to go to the pool again; again for about an hour and again followed by waffles and “Bolt.” This time at the pool most of the time was spent swimming; underwater in Jayden’s case. He amazed me how long we can stay underwater and that he can do underwater summersaults, several at a time. This time Bailey made sure she took the pool key. They are so competitive. I may have them again tomorrow for a couple of hours starting at around 11:00.

BURNT FEET

SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2009 Yesterday Judy and I went to Highland Gardens in American Fork and bought hanging baskets, plants for the garden, a sprinkler for the hose a wind chime and a Sheppard’s hook for the hanging plants. Niki, Alexa and Gavin showed up after we had picked out what we were getting. They looked around a bit then we left for IHOP to eat. Corey, Jayden and Bailey as well as Jim met us for Lunch. It was noon but Judy and I had breakfast food. Corey got a burger. I don’t know what Niki ate but Gavin had a grilled cheese sandwich. Jim was in a hurry to get downtown for Austin and Molly’s dance recital so they put a rush on his chicken sandwich and he left well before the rest of us. While we were at the garden shop, Gavin wanted to get down and walk. He still walks while holding on to your hand. I walked him at first then, after my back was killing me, Judy took over. They walked from the main greenhouse where the annuals are to the area where the shrubs are. When they walked back into the annuals area they walked across a metal plate. It was in the direct sunlight and hot and Gavin was barefoot. When he stepped on the metal plate he screamed bloody murder. His feet were red and it took quite a while before he quieted down. Poor little kid! After we got home, I spent the rest of the day planting flowers and cleaning the back patio the stairwell etc. I'm sure Gavin is fine--he seemed to be!

METALLIC BLUE HONDA CIVIC HYBRID

THURSCAY, MAY 28, 2009 Judy’s 2004 Honda Civic was due to be relicensed by the end of the month and since it has well over 100.000 miles on it, she and I have been thinking it was time to get a new car. The 2009 Civic hybrids have not, until recently been selling well thanks to the fact that gas prices went way down in recent months. Gas prices are now on the rise again and the super-good incentives are going away so it was imperative she jump on it quickly—that and the licensing thing. She stayed late at work last night, but afterwards stopped in at Larry H. Miller Honda in Murray and started bargaining and at 10:45 last night or thereabouts she walked out with a metallic blue one with GPS etc. She even talked them into giving her a set of black all-weather floor mats for Jim’s car that he got recently. (Now Judy and Jim have matching cars, albeit Jim’s is jet black instead of metallic blue, and Jim’s doesn’t have the GPS unit.) Judy arrived home 11:30ish, got me out of bed and off we went to “check it out” and to get burgers at McDonalds. It will be interesting to get a better gander at it in the daylight. Maybe she will allow me to drive it to Las Vegas for Stars Nationals in June. Our other two cars are old and I am always a little nervous taking them on long trips.

SUSHI and IZZY

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2009 Last night I mentioned to Corey that we haven’t done lunch lately. It is of course partly that Judy and I were out of town for a week. We discussed doing all-you-can-eat sushi today. Today he called to reconfirm our lunch appointment. He asked if we could meet at Simply Sushi at 11:30 because he had to conduct a training class at the office at 1:00. He said that Stacey would like to go with us. Since Jim rolls sushi there on Thursday nights, he and those with him get a 50% discount. I said that, that would be great. Stacey and I met up at their Bank, the Mountain America Credit Union in the Smith’s parking lot by our place in Saratoga Springs and Stacey and I road in together. I feel as close to Stacey as I do my own children. We had a good visit on the drive both ways. Corey and Jim road together in Jim’s new black Honda Civic Hybrid; (50 mph) On our way home I mentioned to Stacey that I was impressed at how good of a reader Jayden has gotten to be and that he reads everything in sight. She said that I don’t know the half of it. (My wording) He reads every sign along the road when they are in the car and is forever telling them they are driving too fast. He doesn’t want to miss a word. He reads the billboards, the traffic signs; everything! Somehow the subject of Jayden and girls came up. (Remember he won’t be ten until the tenth of July.) Stacey said that he and Izzy had, had a bit of a spat. I wouldn’t have worded it that way. When Stacey went to the school, after classes were over the other day, Jayden ran up to his mother. Izzy called to him to wait up. Jayden uttered something about boys having to do (whatever) for their girlfriends. Izzy, who is about six inches taller than Jayden, got embarrassed that he would use that wording in front of his mother. He said, “don’t worry, she knows!” Izzy said in shock, “Don’t let my parents find out!” Stacey said she wouldn’t tell them and reassured her that it was ok with her if she and Jayden are girlfriend-boyfriend. She also mentioned to me that Jayden and Izzy have vowed to be together forever but that they will not kiss until they are eighteen years old. We’ll see. School is letting out for the summer this Friday. How time flies.

A POEM I WROTE once upon a time

THE GIRL IN THE SNAKESKIN PANTS Thursday, May 18, 2000 He returned that night an awful fright And looked a mite disheveled. So sad and blue—but you’d be too Had you been thus “she-deviled” In snakeskin pants she came to dance Her top no more than sequins Wore nine-inch heels as wide a wheels And that’s but where she begins “But first we dine, dear love of mine” He was feeling rather handsome But by the time she’d done her dine He’d spent a royal ransom She dined on mince and slices of quince And topped it off with champagne Next came cheese blintz and cocktail shrimp Then voila, the main course came Fillet Minion—one pearl onion A sauce made out of capers Trout Almondine next on the scene Was wrapped in fine rice papers The desert bar—stood not too far She lit off in a tizzy Just the desert—made his wallet hurt And made his head feel dizzy Then off they tore to the parquet floor To tango and to rumba Before ‘twas o’er his feet were sore And he was wheezy in his tumba What may excite before the night May make you feel like Tarzan But in the sun—when it’s said and done Will you still think you’re a “He-man?”