What A Nice Weekend!

Well, I couldn't very well get out and cut grass with it threatening rain, now could I? Nooo, of course not. It finally rained late Sunday night, so I was very lucky indeed.

So then, hang on for wondrous yarns of life on the edge of urbia, with a cast including Monica the undine; mo' hosses; losing my lacrimal fortitude to Disney; and the Tiny Wrecking Ball says hello to Fritz.

As we left you Friday, I was concerned about returning with wife and children to swimmy class. At least this time I felt more normal, having stopped by the house to change into jeans and deck shoes. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring the blindfold (or knitting needles to jam into my eyeballs), so once more I had to distract myself from Catherine's instructor with mental gymnastics. This time it was going backwards and forwards through the decimal foot-inch equivalents—1"=.08', 2"=.17', 3"=.25', 4"=.33', 5"=.42', 6"=.50', 7"=.58’, 8"=.67', 9"=.75', 10"=.83', 11"=.92'. These numbers used to be handy back before I had a foot-inch calculator to make it easier to add dimensions when I was drawing. Now they come in somewhat handy for trying to ignore a young lady whose body moves like it's filled with hot caramel. And it was even worse than the day before, in that her Speedo cladding had now whittled itself down to a two-piece model.

Luckily for my sanity and soul, there was a large, goateed, shave-pated, wraparound-shades (sunglasses, not swim goggles) -wearing fellow doing laps (and probably imagining himself in BUD/S training with Jesse Ventura) who floated over to the steps and got out. All that trouble to shave head, and yet he would have been much better served by running the Epilady over his lushly forested back. Coming up out of the water like that, he looked uncannily like one of those evolution posters. I am an ugly, horridly misshapen lumpen man, but I feel much better about myself knowing there is at least one person out there who outranks me. And I do have a nice head of hair.

I was grateful for the distraction, however, along with that provided by the exuberant class of highly buoyant older ladies who were doing water aerobics in another part of the pool. The sight of so much avoirdupois was somewhat helpful in overcoming my more natural mind-wandering tendencies.

As for the swim lessons themselves, Oldest Girl did much, much better this time, with none of the theatrics of Thursday. Little Boy is having a wonderful time (of course, like Dad, he tends to like girls, and their instructor dotes on him since he's the only Little Boy in her group. Lucky little devil.) Catherine splashes a LOT, and seems to have little interest in learning to float on her back or hold her breath. She sure has a lot of fun, though. Monday evening will be devoted to convincing her that floating on her back is fun, too.

“Catherine, Miss Monica says you need to learn to float on your back.”

“I don’t want to. Them waters gets all in my face.”

“That’s why she wants you to float on your back—you don’t have to float face down!”

“No, I’s not gonna float, I’ma gonna bounce!” Wicked little grin.

“If you won’t float, Miss Monica will be sad.”

“Okaaaay. I’ll float!”

Saturday morning was cloudy, and as I mentioned, it looked like there was a chance of a possibility of rain. I was trying my best to have an excuse to not have to endure the heady, refreshing fragrance of the rear of a Briggs and Stratton, and Reba reminded me that she was going to collect on her Mother's Day present of a day at the spa. Hooray! I figured a good way to keep the kids from killing each other and keep me from having to do my necessary yard duty was to take them to a movie after horseback riding lessons, while Mom was getting herself pampered.

As for the pony riding, they (the ones with hooves) seemed distracted by the weather, too, and were more recalcitrant than usual. The instructor, who is usually the picture of patience, also seemed a bit on the peevish side, and before class got started made a loud announcement that the people sitting on the bleachers needed to be very quiet and not make comments to the class.

Reba, Catherine and I were the only ones on the bleachers.

Reba and Cat stayed in the van for the rest of the lesson.

Someone was not happy.

The lesson didn’t last very long, either. Which was either a blessing or a curse. Whatever it was, it sure made for a very quiet trip back to the house. Quiet until the kids learned about our plans for the afternoon. As has become our very bad habit, it was MOVIE DAY again. We swung by and bought advance tickets then dropped Mom back by the house to go get all massaged and preened, and the Demolition Squad and I set out for to see Lilo and Stitch.

Movie Review Time

I am such a great big sucker for cute critters with big sad eyes. And for manipulative Disney stories. Dumbo? Buckets. Bambi? Buckets. Ol’ Yeller Buckets. Lilo and Stitch? Well, there are not one, but multitudes of sad-eyed critters in this one—little girl Lilo, big sis Nani, alien Stitch, alien Pleakley (who had one very large sad eye--close enough). So you figure it out. But what a sweet movie. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, and no one had to go to the restroom during the show. Lots of fun action, lots of clever dialog. AND very nicely drawn. I read somewhere that the studio eschewed the digital work with this one—I don’t know, but if it was used it was so seamless as to be invisible, which is just the way it should be. There are several scenes with hula dancers, a couple with Nani’s boyfriend doing a fire dance, and an extended surfing sequence that are great in their detail and fluidity of movement. There are some elements that don’t really work very well, seemingly thrown in as an uncomfortable “some of my best friends are […]” paean to ‘diversity’ which I absolutely despised in Atlantis. One in particular being (at least for me) the CIA spook-turned-social worker. I realize the whole premise of the movie is unbelievable, but for some reason this guy seemed much more of a non sequitur and unbelievable than any of the aliens. Even the expository bits at the end of the story do not fix him right. I don’t have the vocabulary to adequately express all the reasons why he’s wrong, but he’s just wrong. But he’s just one part, and the rest of the movie gave me a raging case of wetface. Give it 8.75 Possum Curly Tails. And even better, Boy now pretends he’s Stitch, and Baby Girl pretends she’s Lilo—this means that we don’t have to buy any of the merchandise!

We got back home, and then Mom came back all honed and kneaded and prettied up, although disappointed that the spa had neglected to schedule her pedicure and manicure (which was all part of the Mom’s Day package, after all). So, she gets to go back next Saturday for that, and the owner told her she was going to fix her up with some “product” to make up for the gaffe. What kind of product(s)? I’m not real clear on this point, but one assumes it would be some sort of smell-good stuff and not Amway floor cleaner. At least she was in a better mood than when we left the barnyard earlier.

She was in such a good mood that she decided to go to the store and do some vacation shopping; in particular, swimsuits. She has lost about 30 pounds since her well-documented-herein gall bladder surgery, and is all excited about not having to get one of those suits with a skirt on it. And when she’s excited, I’m excited. She came back with two, and I liked them both very, very, very much. ‘Nuff said about that.

Sunday was all the normal churchly things, and I got to further burnish my reputation as the “big mean man.” I was wandering around making sure everyone was in class and that all the teachers were in place. I turned the corner of the elementary hall and was met by the kindergarten teacher with a very perturbed look upon her face and a door opened to a classroom with a very upset young man throwing a fit. Squalling and yalping and pounding the table. Such a sweetie. She had told him that she was about to go get his father—little did he realize that I had was nearby. I first tried to get him to come with me, and when that only made the noise louder, we had a very intense little heart-to-heart which included my maddening insistence that the little bra…angel say “Yes, sir” and apologize to his teacher for acting like an absolute but… shi… tur… bad boy. Of course, such was much worse than he would have ever gotten from his dad, which is his whole problem. Hard to make one mind in class when they aren’t made to mind anywhere else. But we got it handled and class got started back—I checked back in a couple of times and he didn’t get out of hand anymore, but it’s only a matter of time.

He has quite a reputation, which is sad, because he IS just a kid, and seemingly doesn’t know any better. Which is just a shame. Folks, don’t rely on the village to raise your kid—the villagers are for backup purposes only, especially since the number of people willing to make other people’s kids mind is dwindling by the hour. For all the mindless mischief my crew gets into, they know there is a hard, bright line out there they dare not cross. And everyone else knows it, too. Which is why people like our kids and WANT to have them in class. And why you will never see me on TV thanking God they blew up a busload of infidels.

My, this has turned a bit hard-edged—back to happier subject matter, in this case the introduction of Baby Girl to the joys of the equestrian arts. Catherine had been very patiently waiting, and Sunday it was finally time for her classes. We changed into our jeans and got ready to go. Reba had to be up at the church building for a meeting before evening worship, so she and the other kids stayed behind and it became an official Daddy-Tiny Daughter afternoon.

These lessons are much different than the classes for the older kids, in that the little ones more or less just learn to hold on and balance while being led around by parents dragging on the lead rope. Cat got to sit on Fritz, a chubby little Haflinger who is about as sweet and gentle as a bunny, and about as smart. Once Fritz gets going, there is no dragging him—he drags you. I had to stop a couple of times to wipe the sweat out of my eyes, which caused poor Fritz much grief and made my arm sore trying to hold him still for a minute. Baby Girl had a wonderful time, though, and even got to turn around and ride backwards for a bit. (Yes, this was intentional—teaches them balance). She wanted to hold the reins so bad she couldn’t stand it, and grabbed them up as soon as I had hoisted her heavy little preschool butt into the saddle. She even held them exactly right (since she had already seen her brother and sisters do it) but she had to content herself with just holding on. After it was over, I was nasty and sweaty, had a strained right deltoid, and two shoes full of sand. And it was time to go back for evening services. I had just enough time to swing by the house and change shirts and take a Rite Guard shower, which was hampered by the fact that Cowgirl had gone to sleep in the back of the car. Knowing how ill-tempered she gets when awakened prematurely, I ran through the house grabbing clothes and changed on the run and got back out in under a minute. We made it to church, and I wound up having to carry her in. Which may not sound hard, but she is about as cumbersome a load as a sack of bowling balls. I laid her down on the pew and after a few squinkles, she was back out. And she stayed asleep for the whole service—one tired little cowpoke.

Right before it was time to go home, the rain that had threatened all weekend finally fell. We stayed and had a meal with everyone at the building, then it was home and everyone to bed. And up again this morning ready to start it all over again.
posted by Terry at 11:46:00 AM