A Day With The Grand Kids

Don and Dianna had to go to the valley to trade for a new truck Sunday and they asked if we'd watch 7 year-old Shelby and 13 year-old Austin, while they were gone.

It took a little while to get grandpa and grandma going, but once we entered into their world we had a lot fun with them.

Shelby had some bubble blowing gear and we went outside to try it out. The bubbles were so colorful that I got my camera and took several pictures of her and grandma surrounded by tiny bubbles.

I remembered that I still had a “Pop Pop” boat that our grand son Christopher and I had built years ago. Austin and I set up a kiddy pool and launched the little steam powered boat. It runs on candle power, but the little “tea light” candle we had wasn't hot enough to make steam. We tried adding more candles but it got too heavy and sank. We finally used a fireplace lighter to generate enough steam to drive it slowly popping around the pool.

After lunch we all gathered around the computer and looked at the bubble pictures I had taken.

Austin's a reader, and he likes scary stories, so I showed him a werewolf story I had written about ten years ago, for a website I did called “Web Tales.” He read the first couple of paragraphs aloud while I watched, and I realized that he can read faster than I can. I left him to the first chapter and joined grandma and Shelby in the kitchen to do some coloring on plastic sheets that are supposed to end up looking like stained glass...kind of.

When we tired of coloring Shelby asked if we could play T-Ball. Don and Dianna had packed a bag with all of the equipment so Shelby and I went out to set it up. She had to show grandpa how to assemble the stand and then she pointed at the back fence and told me to “Go out there! No, farther!”

I walked part way and watched her tee up the ball, tap the ground with the bat and take a mighty swing. The stand must have been set too high because she knocked it about ten feet and we had to re-assemble it. We adjusted the height and started again. “Go out farther!” she yelled.

Not expecting much, I was surprised when she smacked a high fly ball almost to the back fence. “I got it!” I yelled as I ran, keeping my eyes on the ball. I should have kept one eye on the ground though, because I tripped over Taz and crashed onto the grass. “Home run!” Shelby yelled, running around imaginary bases and sliding into home plate.

Grandma joined us and we had a grand time running after each other around the bushes. The base line, being imaginary, was pretty flexible, which meant to tag a runner out you had to chase them all over the yard. Shelby hit several homers over the fence and we had to move the T-Ball stand farther back.

Austin came out after reading all seven chapters of my werewolf story and he gave me a compliment that meant more to me than if I'd won the Pulitzer Prize. “You're a good story teller, grandpa!”

Don and Dianna showed up a little while later and watched as I ran after Shelby, almost tagging her out until my pants started falling down.

After showing us their new truck, they packed the kids and their gear up and headed home.

Silence ensued, and grandpa and grandma were totally pooped.

Mr. Bullfrog

There have almost always been a few bullfrogs hanging around our fish ponds. I don't know for sure where they come from, but I suspect that somehow at night they hop their way from the nearby lake, through the swampy, forested area behind our property and then when they hear the waterfalls and fountains in the ponds decide to make themselves a new home.

One that I'll always remember was “Bud” who we named for the Budweiser frogs commercials. When he showed up one spring Bud was already a full grown bullfrog, and after a summer diet of bugs, snakes and other unfortunate, smaller frogs he grew into truly gigantic proportions. He was king of the pond and on sunny days when he felt the need to soak up some rays he ruled his little kingdom from a rock that caught the morning sun.

Bud was not above eating the smaller goldfish, and once I took a picture of him with a fish in his mouth and I swear, a guilty look on his face. He and a couple of smaller frogs, were welcome residents of the pond for several years, hibernating in the leaves and gunk that accumulated on the bottom during the winter and coming forth like Lazarus in the spring.

Then for some reason the frogs disappeared and we really missed watching them. The first thing the grand kids would ask when they came to visit was, “Where's Bud? Where are the frogs?”

This spring a lone bullfrog bravely came to visit. Who knows what dangers he faced traveling on his perilous journey to our little pond.

We first became aware of him when we'd let the dogs out and they'd race to the edge of the pond, followed by a splash as the frog dove to safety. Then we began spotting him trying to get some sun on the edge of the pond before the dogs could chase him back into the water.

One day I noticed Taz busy doing something by the pond and I was amazed to see him nudging the frog with his nose. The stubborn frog wasn't about to give up his sunny spot and Taz turned, looked at me, and cocked his head as if to say” What's the matter with this frog? Isn't he supposed to be afraid of me?”

Lately Mr. Bullfrog spends his days on the stepping stones beside our fish pond and the dogs have to really startle him to get him to jump. When he does crawl back out of the water he has a royally pissed off look on his face.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day started early this year.

Don, Dianna, Austin and Shelby stopped by on Friday afternoon with balloons and a really pretty potted plant for Carol. Brad and Donna gave her a beautiful yellow chrysanthemum on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier in the week I had been telling JC about an ad I saw on TV that featured chocolate covered strawberries for a Mother's Day gift.

“I can do that,” he said, “I've done it before!”

“If I get the strawberries and chocolate, would you help me make some for Carol?” I asked. “I'd probably screw things up royally if I tried doing it.”

“Sure,” he said, “I'll even go to the store with you to make sure you get the right stuff!”

We decided that we'd get together on Saturday morning while Carol was helping with the fire department yard sale, and surprise her with them when she got home.

JC picked me up at 9 a.m. and after buying some giant strawberries and packages of white and dark chocolate at our local market we went to his house to begin.

He put a pot of water on the stove to boil and sat a pan on top of it. “OK, now we put the chocolate in and stir.”

After a few minutes the little brown lumps (or “morsels” as Nestle calls them,) began to melt and turn soft. “I think we're ready to dip!” JC said. I grabbed a strawberry by the leaves and dipped it in the brown goo, turning it to even out the coating. “Perfect!” I said as I sat the coated berry upside down in an aluminum foil covered egg carton that we'd had the foresight to prepare. A little melted chocolate ran down onto my fingers but I licked it off, getting a little on my chin in the process. The next one was a little messier, and by the third or fourth one, my hands and face were turning into a sticky, brown mess. JC began dipping because I was slowing down, and as the level of the chocolate dropped we had to spin the berries to get them covered. This resulted in the sleeve of my sweater getting a nice, shiny brown finish to it. By the time we finished with the dark chocolate phase of our project the strawberries looked great, but us... not so much. We put our masterpieces in the freezer to cool, and cleaned ourselves up with warm water and soap.

“Now for the white chocolate!” JC said, as he poured the little white lumps into a clean pan and started stirring. For some reason the more he stirred the more lumpy it got and pretty soon it was just one big lumpy lump.

“I don't know what's going on here,” JC said as he began reading the directions on the chocolate bag.

“Are you sure you've done this before?” I asked.

“Well, actually no, but I watched Emeril do it on TV the other day, and it looked easy! Oh, it says here you can microwave it.”

The first seeds of doubt began trickling into my head, but the microwave has always been our friend, (despite a few fires and explosions,) so JC glopped most of the lump into a cup and started nuking it.

After one minute he pulled it out and it still was a lump, but a little smaller. He added some more and put it back in for another minute.

His microwave has a really good light inside of it, so we had a great view of the white lump almost instantaneously turning brown. “I think it's burnt,”JC said as he shut off the microwave, pulled the cup out and put a piece in his mouth to check it out. To his credit he didn't scream, but he had to peel the burning piece off of his tongue with his fingers. I couldn't understand very much of what he was saying for a while after that, but we mutually decided to forgo the white chocolate part of Carol's Mother's Day gift.

JC made a pot of coffee and we stirred a spoonful of burnt white chocolate into our cups. It wasn't half bad! Maybe Starbucks could use the recipe.

Bad Dog 2

The other day when we returned home from shopping in Newport, the dogs greeted us with their usual exuberance, bouncing up and down like a couple of out of control yo-yos. We carried in the groceries and gave them a treat for being such good doggies.

It was then that I saw the books on the coffee table... the brand new Clive Cussler and James Lee Burke books that had just come into the library the day before we'd checked them out. They looked like a giant rat had been chewing on them.

As soon as I picked the books up to inspect the damage, Squeak crawled under the table with her head between her paws and a very guilty look on her face. She was the rat!

The next day we took the books back to the library along with our checkbook. The librarian looked at them and told us that Jill, (the head librarian,) would let us know how much they would have to charge us. A couple of days later we received this email:

Carol:

I hope your dog did not get indigestion on Cussler’s book The Wrecker. I much prefer the flavor of Rain Gods by Burke. Sorry to say I have billed you for the replacement of the two books. I ordered replacements today. I did give you a BIG break on the cost since you were so direct about the problem. And because you two are great patrons.

So the bill is $20 for the two books. Would you like to have the books??? I will keep them here on reserve for a week.

Thank you again for being good patrons.

Jill Tierce

Waldport Public Library

wplstaff@beachbooks.org

So now we're the proud owners of two brand new, slightly chewed books.