Sorry I couldn't wish you a Happy Birthday in person. Have no fear. I'll catch up with you later this week. (I guess Chris could have given you your gift yesterday when he saw you and Geoffrey but that would have required him to wrap it and you don't want see the outcome of that.)
We returned home the day after Memorial Day -- avoiding all the
holiday traffic. Unfortunately, the trip back was a bit harder on
Parker. (I think he was pretty exhausted from the exciting
weekend.) So we had a few more extended stops to calm his nerves.
Here we are at Colinga (I think that's the correct spelling) having a
truckstop picnic (plopping our blanket down under one of the few
shady spots). There's nothing like hitting the bottle to put one in
a better mood.
Parker met Jamie, Chris' sister, today. As you can see from his
expression, he loved every minute of it. (And yes, another well-
behavied restaurant experience.) We just have one more Trillo to
go. (Watch out Dana! You can't escape the wonder that is Parker.)
After seeing Fay, we stopped by my brother James' place to see his
baby boy, Jason, who's about 3 weeks older than Parker.
For those of you who don't know Chinese, "Amah" (not sure is this is
the correct spelling) means "Grandma". As you can probably guess,
this is a picture of my mom holding Parker (left) and Jason (right).
As my mom and Jason look at the camera, Parker wonders if the
horizontal strips makes him look fat.
While up north, we couldn't miss seeing Fay and David, who just
bought a new house in Mountain View. Here's Fay and Parker after a
delicious Thai lunch. (I must say, Parker was pretty well behaved in
the restaurant -- sure there was a minor outburst but nothing that a
bottle of formula couldn't handle.)
(BTW, if you're looking for a cool bag, check out Fay's company Gyms
Pacific at http://www.gymspacific.com . There's a lot of neat items
to carry your electronics and other stuff.)
Looks like Parker's in the middle of a love triangle. I have a
feeling, though, that Luxi will win in the end. (That bear is no
match for her.)
So saith the dog whose nose is dusted with kitty litter.
Well that's how my day began. We were suppose to head up north to see Chris' sister's graduation.
"Suppose" you ask? I know, everything seemed to be going on schedule until I started feeling dizzy. As my world continue to spin, it became harder and harder to keep my lunch down. Yeah, puking can quickly derail plans. Usually though, once you toss your cookies, you feel better. However, my world continued spinning. I hoped a nap would solve the problem but it just lead to another bout of vomit.
Finally, hours later, I felt more normal...even better after the chicken soup that Chris made for me. Unfortunately, it was too late to hit the road (and make the 8am ceremony).
So, let me say it now...CONGRATULATIONS JAMIE! Chris and I are very proud of you. From now on, I'll have Chris call you "Master Jamie" in honor of your degree.
We just got satellite access to the internet...and I'm lovin' it. Where we live the fastest dial-up service is 26K...UUUGGG! Life is so much better now...and I can even make a phone call WHILE I'm online. I LOVE IT!
Lately, I've been craving baked goods. Case in point, not only did I recently bake (low fat but still delivious) brownies AND cupcakes but I bought an angel food cake and donuts from the grocery store.
I'm a pig...I know. But in my gluttony I did notice something of interest. Not sure if any of you have notice this but Entenmann's makes a donut 4-pack called "Grab 'Ems". Actually, Entenmann's calls it their "extra tasty donut 4-pack." I guess it's so amazing they had to package these goodies under a special label -- "Entenmann's EXTREME". To further emphasize how cutting edge these donuts are they placed on the packaging a photo of a skateboarder who's catching air on his Entenmann's skateboard. Wow! That's EXTREME! But have no fear, while this kid may represent Entenmann's EXTREME, he's still responsible enough to wear a helmet.
Oh. Did I mention that these EXTREME donuts were glazed Old Fashion's. Well, actually that was also renamed to "Glazed Buttermilk". Ah...they think of everything.
By the way, in case you were thinking of using the name "Grab 'Ems"...don't. Entenmann's has trademarked the phrase. (Those crafty devils!)
Who knew doing laundry could be so dangerous?
I figured something was wrong when I noticed sewage backing out of my shower and tub drains. Ewww! The plunger only made matters worse. The only perceive cause was the washing machine, which had just emptied it's first rinse cycle and was about the start another. Quickly I turned it off. Luckily, very little of the filthy water leaked onto the floor. The rest remained contained in their tubs. Then I called Chris.
My hero arrived home a couple hours later. It was almost 10 at night and he had a 6am call but he proceeded to take a snake (a plumer's auger used to clear drains) and cleared out every drain in the house, including the septic tanks vent, which is on the roof. No luck.
Then he went outside and, with a shovel, began to uncover the lid to the **gulp** septic tank. While it was wasn't as smelly as he expected, it did appear to be full. Oh boy! There will be no showers tonight. Time to crank up the hot tub! Sure we would be soaping up but it was relaxing, none the less.
Chris didn't get to be until 1am.
This morning I looked in the Country Journal (the local free paper) and called one of the septic companies listed -- Acton Sanitation. "When would you be able to come out to empty our tank and how much would it cost?" That would depend on our tank --was it concrete or metal -- because the problem could just be a clog. I told Jim, the man from Acton Sanitation, that I didn't know and he offered to come over to check it out for me. (He was just down the road from our house.)
As promised, he arrived in about 10 minutes. And, after checking into our septic tank (which is metal), he confirmed that it was just a clog. He took a rod from out of his truck, jabbed at the pipe in the tank and VOILA! The tank began to guggle to life. "So does this mean the drains in my house are now working again?" "Yup."
That was it. Go figure.
You know what's even more amazing? Jim didn't charge me a thing. Talk about a super nice guy. I guess I can chalk it up to "country livin'".
