Kathy was getting dressed and noticed that Kelly was playing in front of the full-length bathroom door mirrors. It looked like she was playing with her mouth.
A few minutes later Kelly came crying to Kathy. She had a dime stuck between her two front teeth.
Kathy was tickled. Kelly now has an distaste for money.
After spending 4 days in Orlando at the MPI User Seminar, I was glad to come home to the extended weekend. Saturday was opening day at the pool. Danny and Nicole were already regulars, though, since they had been going to swim team practice after school all week.
We had barbecue (Danny and Nicole snuck an early look at the whole pig that was roasted through the evening before) and other pot-luck fixings. We ate with Bill and Theresa ______ and Jim and Carol ______ whose daughter Cindy showed Nicole, me and Danny the secret cut throughs to get home.
Nicole and Danny can now walk to school and the pool now that they know the secret paths.
We freed a baby bird from a tomato net on the way home.
Kelly enjoyed her first swim in the baby pool. She calls it a bath. She also calls the river a bath. She didn’t eat much barbecue.
Dad: What happened this morning?
Danny: Mom got locked in the bathroom. She called me and Nicole to get her out.
Dad: Where was Kelly?
Danny: She was following us, handing us the tools.
Dad: What tools?
Danny: The little tools in the little toolbox.
Dad: Why did you have tools?
Danny: To get Mom out of the bathroom.
Dad: What did mom say?
Danny: Help me get out of the bathroom. I am locked in. I need some help.
Dad: How did you know what to do?
Danny: Mom told us what to do.
Dad: What did she tell you?
Danny: To take the doorknob apart with a screwdriver. She said, what screwdriver do you have? So I put it under the bathroom door. She said that was the right one.
Dad: What kind was it?
Danny: I don’t remember the name.
Dad: A flat head or a phillips head?
Danny: A phillips head.
Dad: So then what did you do?
Danny: Tried to unscrew the door knob. It was too hard. I started to cry.
Dad: Did Nicole try?
Danny: Yes. But I didn’t let her. I yelled at Nicole.
Dad: Where was Kelly?
Danny: Playing with the screwdrivers. Nicole was saying “no.”
Dad: So Mom never got out?
Danny: Mom got out with a credit card.
Dad: That was right after you tried with the screwdriver?
Danny: Mom said to bring up my purse and give me my credit card. Then she got out.
Dad: Did anyone else try to help Mom?
Danny: John did, but it was too late for him to get her out. He was going to use a little key.
Dad: Did he not try to use the screwdriver?
Danny: No he did not try to use the screwdriver.
Dad: How did John know Mom was in the bathroom?
Danny: Me and Nicole told him.
Dad: Did you go over to his house?
Danny: He came over here.
Dad: Why?
Danny: To know if he could do something to our driveway…. the thing that you and Uncle Bob did.
Dad: Pressure wash it?
Danny: Pressure wash it.
Dad: Were you laughing a lot?
Danny: No.
Dad: Did you think it was funny.
Danny: Kind of.
Dad: Why were you the one who tried to use the screwdriver rather than Nicole or John?
Danny: Mom wanted me to do it because I know some more about the screwdrivers.
The End.
The Cardinals won their second game. Danny made a terrific catch running across the in field. He caught a pop up after stumbling across the pitcher’s mound. Kathy wanted to see a replay.
For such an unlucky day, I got news of a pretty big raise (years in the making.)
Kathy called me at work to report that Danny had spotted a snake in the back yard. It was a big one she said, just laying there coiled up near the stick pile.
I told her to try to throw a garbage can over it, and I’d come home to help figure out what it was.
When I got home, Kathy had been unable to get a trashcan over it because the snake was too near some sticks. I was surprised to see how big it was. It seemed dark and dirty, so it was hard to see the pattern. My guess was that it was a water snake.
I changed out of my office attire and put on some work gloves to catch the snake. Kelly was very interested in helping me, but Kathy kept holding her back (despite Kelly’s protests.) Danny watched with much interest, since, after all, he had discovered the snake. Nicole nervously kept her distance all the way up on the upper deck. She was 40 feet away and 10 feet up. At least one of us would survive to tell the story.
I grabbed the snake and it immediately squirted a lot of milky white smelly stuff from its tail. A lot of the stuff, actually. Smelled awful. I put the snake in a garbage can. Nicole was terribly nervous. Kathy was excited. Kelly was delighted and trying out her new word “snake! snake! snake!”. She was also frustrated that she was shorter than the garbage can, so she immediately tried to pull it over.
I put the can next to the lower deck so that she could climb up and get a better view.
We poured some water into the garbage can to clean the dirt off the snake. That did the trick because the bands stuck out that looked just like the water snake markings we had seen at Washington Square. We had read back then that water snakes make bad pets because they are so mean.
I let the snake out in the yard and caught it (with Kathy’s help and a hockey stick) so that I could pick him up. Everyone got a good look and feel, including some neighbors walking by. Kelly held the snake in both hands (with me holding the head.) She looked pretty brave. Her fingers couldn’t even reach all the way around the thick snake.
We then let him go in the ditch, and he slithered back towards the river.
Biggest snake I ever caught in my life. Not as big as the Yellow Rat snake, though, that my Dad wouldn’t let me catch when we were canoeing down the Ogeechee river.
There once was a rat named Matt
Who was quite fat until
He stepped into the street
without looking this way and that
And now Matt the Rat is flat.
Danny and the Cardinals lost their third came in a row yesterday. Danny got to pitch the 4th and 5th innings, and did a good job until his arm tired out. He didn’t allow many runs.
The Red Sox have some great hitters and fielders. The score was something like 14 to 4. Kathy scored the game in the keepsake scorebook she is making for Danny. I’m not sure if he’ll want to look back at these games to get any accurate statistics.
Kathy got very excited watching Danny pitch and yelled and jumped with every strike he threw.
Kelly didn’t care at all. She played in the dirt, watched a big dump truck, and tried to sneak away as many times as possible.
Nicole did not get to run the scoreboard this game, but she did the last game against the Brewers, which was the best game so far. In that game, the first 11 at bats all got hits! Danny’s old Tiger buddy, Jeb, is on the Brewers.
Helped Doug Brown with his organization chart idea. It will be interesting to see if it works.
[Nicole writes:]
Well, I didn’t get picked for Fine Arts in the Fashionata. I was picked for Literature instead. Oh, Well. Charlie is upstairs in Mom & Dad’s room with her bent out toe in the air. Poor Pup.
[Nicole writes:]
In school we’re going to have a Fith grade fashion show. We’re assigned to a subject and we have to pick something out of that categorie and and draw it, color it, or paint the subject we picked. I want fine arts so I can do a pitcher throwing a ball at the batter on the front and on the back I would like to have a batter swinging at the ball. I think the judges might like that.
Mrs. Broughton, the art teacher, siad I was a great artist. Maybe I’ll be an artist or a cartoonist someday. (Hmmmmm.)
