And A-Waaaay We Went

Getting waaaaay too much fun out of the water heater lately. It took us a week, week and a half to get the Bob Villa contingent on the same page (and same schedule), and in the mean time, we had to keep fighting a water heater that was all about the extreme. At first we thought the thermostat had gone out, because most of the time, the water would be ice cold. We'd flip the breaker, and the water would come out boiling...If you waited eight hours, there would be just enough water at JUST a safe enough temperature to get a very quick shower, and get out before the next great freeze came. The good news was that it was essentially just the heating elements, but Jon still had to scrape out mass-quantities of silt from the heater...and spent at least two days trying to shovel who-knows-how-many-pounds of it out using a wire hanger through a hole an inch long. Jon got the first shower because he earned it, and Josh got a bath next...but when my turn came...I just stayed in that glorious steam until I was nothing but pure prune.

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One of my favorite experiences recently was the Where the Wild Things Are Wild Rumpus at the big library. Josh was totally stoked, he was dressed in his batman pajamas (because all the kids were supposed to be duded-up in their pj's.), complete with cape and mask...and Jon was able to join us as we trekked up...

We watched a few movies, danced, Josh made a paperbag puppet...but the part that I just LOVED was when Josh got to play his first party game. They had donuts on strings tied to sticks, and the kids had to get on their knees with hands behind their backs, and try to eat the donuts...the catch was that they could only eat the donuts when the music was playing...or that was the way it was supposed to play out...except Josh, when faced with a powdered donut, wasn't about to stop just because the music did...nor was he willing to keep his hands behind his back. There was a donut. And it was taunting him...and you know he wasn't going to take that kind of nonsense from a pastry. Another kid won, but you'll never convince Josh of that. He was covered head to toe, back to front in powdered sugar, but by God, he was eating his donut, and for a three year old, that was really all that mattered. In his mind, he was, unquestionably, the game's end-all, be-all champ.

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One weekend before Jon's union meeting, we took Josh to McDonald's farm, and their corn maze. For the mere forking over of $10 and Josh's community-event passport, we got a cheap thrill on a simply Gohr-geee-OHs! Day. Josh darted through the maze, setting the pace, and then we got to have a hayride (Josh's first). We were chewed on by baby goats...(dull surprise there, as goats always seem inclined to try to eat me), but I also got a few baby goat kisses before it started munching on my coat (I am not falling for the potential cuteness, I know it was just checking my fingers for taste) and Josh got to crawl in a big sandbox – though his favorite part was crawling around in the corn-kernel box just beside it (even if he had to keep shaking corn out of his shoes every few minutes). We finished our tour by examining the life-size plastic cow by the entrance...Someone (with too much time on their hands???) had rigged the plastic cow with a working udder, so that all might kneel before the Great Plastic Elsie and attempt actual milking of a non-actual cow. While Josh enjoyed the experience, I am also certain that he now firmly believes that all milk comes from plastic cows.

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I'm still not certain about the inherent wisdom of such a move, but Jon and I have officially slurped up our kool-aid and joined the cult of Face Book. Jon succumbed because he was trying to find a long lost friend from college. I joined it because Jon was brave enough to throw in, and I figured what the hell. For the last few years, all I've really heard about social networking it that is that the accounts keep getting hacked, and I've just been nervous as all hell about it. To ease my fears, we set up unconnected, FB-only emails and have tried to limit the personal information anyone else has access to.

Diving in has been a very unusual experience...and I confess, I had no idea what to expect. In many respects, FB is kind of like eBay -- strangely hypnotic and all about the waiting it out, only without the thrill of the pounce. It was fascinating and wholly disconcerting to realize that I could find people sooooo much faster on FB than I ever could on Google, and with much less effort ( I believe Jon tracked down his missing friend within four days of joining FB, just by clicking through the sites of other friends.) I've found people I never thought to hear from again and I've been honestly delighted to come across them, and I've accidentally found people that I had truly believed would have had the good sense to just go back under their respective rocks and stay there. Some are just as I've remembered them – hardly even a hairstyle change...some are stronger, more certain, living lives I never expected for them.

I should tell you that Jon's favorite part so far (aside of finding his friend and playing the mafia game) is that when I stated on FB that I was married to him, he was required to “Comment” on our marriage status to confirm that we actually were of the hitch-ed persuasion. Rotten-ornery men should never be given that much power. :P He was so smug and smirky that I nearly felt the need to “Comment” on the back of his head.

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Jon had his annual union meeting...at a resort that was undergoing a bankruptcy and a transition to new ownership. The staff was minimal, but very polite...the resort itself felt really odd ...at least at first. It was an indoor water park, but when we arrived, we found out that the park was closed for maintenance. All of the rooms and furniture were small...and all of the paintings were placed at a lower level, so I was left with the distinct impression that I had reservations in a hotel for garden gnomes. For the first day, after my requisite exploration, I locked myself in the room, turned on several horrendous movies for background noise, and began typing furiously. I'm still skittish about using public wi-fi, but it really didn't seem to be an option there. With no net and too much caffeine, I came up with a rather odd little story (see the Touch of Writer's Blog to read it yourself), and could at least say that I used the time productively, if not “well”. Jon's office received an award/notice for having most of its crew unionized...I teased him because he hates getting his photos taken, and he had to march to the front holding an inch-long piece of plastic in his hand. Because of the numbers “2009”, he had to stand up there, feeling silly, getting snapped with all the other offices reps who had the same dippy piece of plastic. I'm not being disrespectful to unions...I just reserve the right to be amused that Jon had to drive an hour and a half to claim a piece of plastic so that he could drive back home for another hour and a half to stick it on a REAL plaque back at his office. The upside was that we were at a very sociable table this time around. Usually the folks at the meetings tend to be kind of clique-y --unless they are from Jon's office-- and when they don't want to talk to “the wives”, they make a point of talking in soc.sec. Acronyms (and you can't tell me that with all of the anal-retentive acronyms they have for every nuance of the job, that there isn't a special one for the meeting-wifeys) to ice me out. However, two of the ladies present were utterly charming, and both made a point of including me in the conversation. Rumor has it that the next meeting maybe at Mohican Resort next year – one of my all-time favorite places, ever! – and the ladies have already told me that they will seek me out at the next meeting, which, if they actually do, will be a wonderful change of pace from my usual, solitary haunting of the meeting facilities.

On our way home from the festivities, we cruised over to German Village so that Jon could partake of the Thurman Cafe's Thurmanator burger (recently mentioned on MAN vs. FOOD). After an hour wait for a seat that nearly had our elbows in our neighbors' nostrils, lunch was served. Jon's burger was bigger than his head, very salty, and very messy...Mine, the Rad 'Shroom, was also rather large, but was quite pleasant. As Jon had eaten little at the meeting, he managed to down the whole beastie (and was very smug about it), but we've decided that if we ever head back that way that we'll try something else on the menu besides the burgers. The walls were covered with old photos and knick-knacks, and ancient ads, and nothing was really placed up there with any definite intent...it would have been more accurate to suggest that it was more like a flattened flea market on the wall than an actual attempt at decoration. However, the staff was very sweet, and I'm up for it again if we are ever in the neighborhood (and you know, since we would be in German Village anyway, if I were to accidentally get sucked into the vortex that is that the bookstore of doom, a.k.a. THE BOOK LOFT http://www.bookloft.com/, well, I can't really fuss too much, can I – no doubt, Jon's wallet will, but I won't have a problem with it. As he well knows, I will never leave him for another man, but if I ever do leave, he will find me in the nearest bookstore.)

The next stop was Half-Price Books (my personal addiction) and a brief run on Wallyworld, and then we holed up for a few days and were completely unsociable. It was just wonderful to have a Date Week again. Now, if only poor sweet Uncle Harry had cued in that we were on a Date Week, and not just having a few “Days Without Josh”. Ahem. Love the man. Adore him. Would do anything for him. Anything. But Lord Love a Duck, where in the name of The Flying Spaghetti Monster did he get his timing from?! He'd finally gotten over his shyness about calling Josh at Mom's, and then he'd be so proud, he'd have to call us...to tell us that he called Josh...and tell us that Josh was doing just fine. And you can't just let the phone go to the machine with him...Nope, nope...if he thinks we're home, and we don't pick up the phone, he gets worried. When he gets worried, he. Comes. OVER. Do you understand the words that are being typed into this blog? He. Comes. OVER. Completely oblivious to anything else that might be occurring, or even that something else actually IS occurring And so, of course, we must stop anything that might be occurring, and take his call. My life isn't a sitcom, it's pure Vaudeville. (And if Harry ever realizes exactly how close to “Burlesque” it is, well, that sunburn will never come off his face and he will never be able to talk to us again.)

Meanwhile, back in WL, since Mom had missed an entire month with Josh (Sept. is always a busy time for her), and was adamant that she should have Josh for six days, including our overnight at the lodge. With all of the hype and scare regarding the H1N1 flu, Jon and I were in high obsession mode. We had managed to snag Josh the regular flu shot (which he handled like a trooper), but we had also been scouring the interweb for ways to survive the H1-shot delay. Mom was given strict marching orders to put saline gel on Josh's nose on a frequent basis, he was told he could use the hand sanitizer as often as he wanted, hot drinks twice a day, grape juice to coat his stomach and give him Vit. C and anti-oxidants...about the only thing we didn't do was ask her to rub his entire body with a lucky rabbit's foot and make him pat the stomach of a Happy Buddha statue for luck. It helped that she's as freaked on this flu crap as we are, and she was only too happy to do everything we asked. Poor Jamie, my bro, has never been the type to just collapse when he was entitled, so he was out ref-ing in gack-weather (rain/cold/any form of drippy hell) when he felt awful, and we think, at this point, that he's caught Piggy Flu. His school isn't messing around, and just told him not to come back for a week. While I doubt seriously that he will take this opportunity to rest and recoup as he's supposed to (again, he doesn't know how to “rest”), he may not have much choice. Now, the good news is that even when he isn't be-plagued, he and Devon are ludicrously active and healthy, and so, we hope/think he'll get over this without too much trouble. (But of course, we'd never turn down prayers or happy thoughts.) Jon's been having me call all of the health depts., and double check with Josh's school (no sickies right now, and the staff's getting the shots). When he wasn't being forced to be healthy, Josh was having a huge time at the Wild Woman's. She has maple leaves, which were nice and crunchy and in mass quantities (sadly, it's not nearly the lovely experience to jump into the locust leaves which tend to be the staple in our area)...and so Josh got to bury himself in leaves, slide down on leaves on the slide into leaves (get all that?), do flying leaps into piles of leaves, and just wear the livin' snot out of himself. Near the end of his visit, he would calmly inform us that he “didn't miss us at all anymore” and that he would be living at Granma Marsha's house from now on. Uh huh...good to know.

Once again, the only primary draw (he wanted to admit to ) back home was Harry (and if Mom ever gets her mitts on him, and gets him to stay in WL, we can kiss that boy goodbye and gone!)...and ol' Harry was about to pull out his ace. My long timers will recall that last year I was totally against the idea of Josh having a power-wheel I didn't know where we would store it...what if it went too fast, don't the batteries keep exploding...he'd grow out of it too quickly...you name it, I picked up the argument and threw it back at them...”Them” meaning Harry, and Larry, and Grandpa Tim...all of whom have been conspiring to get Josh his own wheels since the moment the hospital said we could keep him. In a moment of weakness, I may have mentioned to Jon and maybe, accidentally to Tim, that I wasn't as worried about it now as I was last year...and if they could find a way around my other arguments, they could get him one. Three days after that comment, a John Deere power-wheels beast was living in the garage. It was hard to tell who was more delighted, Josh, who cruised around with a smile that just ate his entire head...or the rest of the Greats and Grands who chortled and laughed as though every Christmas had come at once. Silly me, I thought, well...at least he can't ride it all of the time, the battery will lose it's charge.

And then Harry told me that he's bringing home another battery.

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Jon is not the kind of person who is comfortable appearing foolish – He lives his life as though he were a duck, “calm and cool on the surface, paddling like hell underneath”. It's been quite a struggle for him to let down his guard with Josh, though he's been making long strides...I think one of my favorite Daddy-Josh times is when Jon is doing their nighttime routine before bedtime. Jon goes into Josh's room, bigger than life and twice as strong, and growls all of the rooms shadows into submission...he leaves no doubt that there is no monster or ghost or whatever bigger or badder than Daddy. Then he and Josh curl up in the chair by the window and Daddy reads. Part of their routine also includes playing the Christmas piano book Josh has, and one of the most dear things I've ever heard is Jon singing Christmas carols with Josh at the top of his voice...an act made all the more sweet because of how self-conscious my husband is about his singing voice...

and I think it is truly a wonderful thing that Jon trusts/loves Josh so much that he will sing for him... and though I must have said this before, there is certainly no sexier thing in the world than a man being silly with his little boy.