Best Summer View So Far

We don't get to the pool very often.  It's not that we don't love the pool, it's just that it takes us so long to locate everything, get suited, slathered with sunscreen, gather up water, snacks and other items, that the pool is closed when we get finally get there.  But today, we made it. It took us four hours, because it is Us. 

 And this is what the view was like when we got there.  Lots of dark clouds rolling in our direction.  The usual afternoon Random Rain Events. 

"Should we go?" my husband asked.  I glared at him.  It took us four hours to get up here, and he wants to leave?  No.  We went in and set our stuff down. 

And that grayish area you see above the blue patio covering is...rain.  It looked to be about a mile or two away.

"Should we go?" my husband asked.  I glared at him again.

"Four hours," I said.  We kept swimming.  There was no lightning or thunder anywhere, but I kept an eye out anyway.  And in about five minutes, this was the view:

Because that is how Texas weather is supposed to work.  Happily, the three of us got back to our pool time frolicking.  I even got in a lap or two of random-ish swimming. 

But the best view ever? My two favorite men.  What could be better than that?

3.) Your favorite summer view so far.

A Little Advice

Mamakat's Prompt: 2.) Dear Men, (an open letter…offer a word of advice, an issue you’d like to address, or a solution to a problem for the opposite sex).







Dear Menfolk,

Living with a woman can be difficult.  We might look pretty, but so do many venomous creatures.  We come with a lot of rules, for one thing, many of them secreted away in our subconscious minds. Those hidden rules are minefields for you poor souls. In many cases, even we don't know what will set us off.  Besides being a walking cesspool of hormonal fluctuations, sometimes we just get overwhelmed and we react to situations badly. Feelings have been hurt, pride has been wounded, egos have been stomped.

You, poor men, have missed some sort of clue, and now you are stranded in the center of the minefield, where any movement will result in a horrific explosion. I am here to help. Here is one very important secret to dealing with your significant other safely and keep your house in harmony: Treat all women as if we were badgers.  We share many of the same behavioral characteristics. We get cranky when disturbed. We protect what we love. And we attack those who poke at us.

So stop trying to poke the badger with a spoon. 

Your beloved is angry, for whatever reason. She leaves the room to calm down, muttering ominously to herself.  You are concerned.

Let her go.

I know, I know--being a man, you want the problem solved right then. You don't want to wait. Your first instinct will be to get up and go to your lady. You will approach her, lovingly, with the intent of making things right.  Your attempts will go horribly awry, and you will find yourself face to face with an angry badger, which is hands down the most terrifying experience known to man.  Even Chuck Norris won't face down an angry badger.
(Note:  this is a completely hypothetical situation.  My husband knows better than to poke a badger with a spoon, which is why I married him.)

Man: "What is wrong?"

Woman: "Nothing."   Translation: I am still so angry that I can't even articulate that I am angry. Leave me alone.

Man: "Seriously, honey, you look angry. What is going on?

Woman:(with clenched teeth) "Nothing."  Translation:  see above, especially the leaving alone part.

Man:  "Is it me? Are you angry at me? Because I have just been sitting there watching television for the last 18 hours. You can't possibly be mad at me."

Silence, while fighting urge to scream.

Man:  "Well if it is not me you are angry at, then who?"

Woamn: "Just. Go. Away. Now."   Translation:  LEAVE. ME. ALONE.

Man: (Goes away, comes back three minutes later)

Man:  "Are you still mad? This isn't because you got your period, is it? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Woman:  "Grrrrrr!"  (that's supposed to be the sound of an angry badger, but I've never been anywhere near an angry badger, so I am just guessing.)


When I become angry, I may need a few minutes or even a few hours to calm down, process what happened, and articulate my feelings about the situation. Sometimes the person I am angry at is actually me, but I need to figure that out on my own.  I cannot calm down if there is someone following me around, asking me if I'm angry every 5 minutes. If anything, that person asking me if I'm angry--makes me angrier, and is the equivalent of poking a badger with a spoon.  If you can learn to put the spoon down and wait for your love to calm down, your house will be much more harmonious, and there will be no need for any emergency medical attention. 

I hope this helps. 

Sincerely,
Not Just Another Mother Blogger!

Favorite part of summer

Mamakat's Totally Awesome World Famous Prompt:  Ask your child what their favorite part of Summer has been and then blog about it.

 
I asked my son to tell me about his favorite part of summer. Easy blog post, I figured! We are traveling about and having 'adventures', after all.  How many kids get to put their hand into a dinosaur's footprint? He got to dig for fossils, and climb big rocks, and clamber over rocks in a river, and climb steep hills.  Surely that will be my child's favorite part of summer. 

I've scheduled play dates for my son this summer. Never mind that my parents never scheduled play dates for me.  Never mind that I spent years ridiculing parents who "scheduled" time to play for their children instead of just letting them be free range children as God intended. Never mind that most of the people that I know have children about to graduate from high school. Never mind that the last time I went on a "play date" with my son, he ended up taking off his shoes, socks and pants in the middle of the tunnel in the play area.   I scheduled THREE play dates for my boy, just so he could have fun playing with someone else. 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

I've sat on the floor for over an hour, playing "The Skylanders Invade The Batcave and Give the Joker Such a Smack While the Hulk Eats Chicken".  (And yes, that game completely made me think of Leeroy Jenkins of WoW legend.)  My knees screamed as though they were facing a chainsaw, and I lost circulation in my ankles, but Superman defeated WamShell so that all would be well with the world.  It took me about twenty minutes to get back up from the floor, but that wasn't the point.

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

I bribed my mother to use her id card so we could get on the base and Zane could see the Taj Mahal and look at all the jets that regularly fly over our house. 

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Tina on Pinterest

 
Surely that will be my child's favorite part of summer.  

We went to a Scorpions game, where Zane saw fireworks on the Fourth of July.  One of the Scorpions players gave Zane a new soccer ball.  He got to dance with the drum corps that performed at half time.  He got to attend two soccer clinics and practice soccer with two of his friends. (Does that count as a play date?  I think that I totally should get to count that!) 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.

We took Zane to a British Soccer camp, where a real live British person coached him and didn't yell at him a single time.  He got personalized attention, which is the very bestest kind, I am told.  He learned to kick the ball using the correct part of the foot.  He got to keep 'alligators' from eating the soccer ball. He got to run around the soccer fields to his hearts content. 

Surely that will be my child's favorite part of the summer.


We are going to the Lego Discovery Center.  We are going to take in a Major league soccer game.  We are going to a birthday party on the Comal River. We will probably hit Sea World.  Surely one of these will be my child's favorite part of summer. 

"Son, what is your favorite part of summer?"

No answer...because my child was playing Where's My Water? on my phone. I had to say his name three times before he looked up. 

"What is your favorite part of summer?"

I'll give him credit, the boy actually appeared to be thinking about it.  The wheels did appear to be turning and there were no visible signs of stress. 

"Turtleman."   Zane had finally spoken.

"Turtleman?"  I was speechless.

"Yes. Turtleman."  

"We took you to see an entire park full of dinosaurs and a river bed full of dinosaur tracks...and Call of the Wildman is your favorite thing about summer?"

"Yes."

I think that I should have face palmed at that point, but Larry says that would only have encouraged him

Mamakat: Father's Day Loot.

Mamakat's Pretty Much World Famous Prompt:  3.) List 10 things you’d would love to give your husband or Dad for Father’s Day.  I combined a couple:


1.  A freshly mown lawn.  If we could afford it, I would gift my husband a lawn services to take care of this chore. My husband hates to mow the lawn as much as I hate to do dishes.  And yet the grass must be mowed, particularly when tall grass can hide...snakes.  So Larry is out there, a black cloud of mosquitoes flowing around him, pushing the lawn mower through tall grass, hypervigilantly watching for snakes.  He knows that if he sees a snake, I am to be summoned; I am the snake whisperer in the house.  Larry is the cockroach stomper.  The division of labor was necessary to avoid conflict.

2.  A whirlpool tub  We  have a whirlpool bathtub, but the motor broke, so now it is just a bathtub.  Before it broke, Larry was in there at least once a week.  He'd have a book, and his drink, sitting next to the tub on a little stool.  He would be in there until he was all pruney, but he loved it, and it seemed to relax him.  I have plans to get the motor fixed so my husband can once again relax, but I don't know when that will be.  Perhaps when I finish washing dishes...

3.  A brisket  We are carnivores in this family, and we like our brisket.  We just can't afford to have it very often.  A nice, slow cooked brisket will serve us several meals, both lunch and dinner.  Larry likes to roll his brisket into a tortilla, and that does sound kind of naughty, but it is not.  It is, however, quite yummy.

4.  A recliner  A recliner is a must have for any good father, so that he can lounge around in front of the television at the end of the day.  Perhaps Larry would fall asleep in that recliner, or at least doze off.  Then his son can jump off the sofa and land on his father's abdomen, to remind Larry of what is really important:  moving the couch further away from the recliner. 

5.  A family trip to Disney in Florida.  But not just Disney.  We would have to shell out the cash to see all the other attractions around there too, including Legoland.  It would be totally worth it to see Zane's face when he sees his characters walking about.  Larry loves going on roller coasters and the thrill rides, and Zane and I would watch. 

6.  A new laptop  Larry's laptop has seen better days.  It's survived a great many drops, and it's been to Alaska and back.  But it is six years old, and not going to be around much longer.  So Larry will search far and wide to find a sensible laptop that will do all the things that he wants it to do.  Except what he REALLY wants is this:

Source: alienware.com via Tina on Pinterest

7/8.  Tickets/backstage passes to see Iron Maiden/Rush  My husband is a hardcore Iron Maiden fan, and by 'hardcore' I mean that he has everything short of a tattoo of these guys.  He knows all of their albums in all of their incarnations, and will recite them on command.  I sometimes secretly swear that if I hear "Up the Irons!" one more time, someone's head will get a 'reboot'.  
 

Source: cduniverse.com via Tina on Pinterest

I will never understand it, but my husband's behavior at an Iron Maiden concert has been described as very similar to the behavior of fans at the first Beatles concert in the United States. I can't picture my husband screaming his head off until he fainted, so maybe that didn't happen.  Maybe.  When Larry is not going on and on about Iron Maiden, he goes on and on about Rush and how great they are, but with much less screaming and gesticulating. 

9.  Guitar lessons from Eddie Van Halen  Larry was teaching himself how to play the guitar, but he's been slacking lately.  He needs to get back in the groove, and who better to inspire excessive drinking and awesome guitar playing than the master?  Since the tour is on hiatus, those guys aren't busy, and maybe Eddie could use some extra money. 

10.  A trip to New Zealand to hang out with Peter Jackson  My husband is a huge fan of Tolkien.  He has become a huge fan of Peter Jackson as a result.  If he could have been there on the Pellinor Fields, killing orcs,  Larry would have gladly gone down under the hoof of an ellyphat.  If he were able to be on the set of The Hobbitt, Larry would completely lose his mind.  He would be as excited as a little child at Christmas, every set a page come to life.  He would talk Peter Jackson's ear off until a restraining order sent him back home.  But he would have a blast.