Big rat

My wife, Sally, has been in Pennsylvania since last Wednesday, staying with our son, David and his family. I mean extended family. David is one male along with six females, with the addition of his mother. Two of the females are his daughters. He must feel overwhelmed. Sally has been keep me updated on the goings-on. Our granddaughters are Bella, age 3 ½, and Gabby, almost two.

David and I took the girls to Chuck E Cheese last night for dinner. They were really excited until Chuck E Cheese showed up....this great big rat walking around waving at the kids, etc. All of a sudden when he headed toward us both girls started shrieking and Bella started climbing up me. It was so funny! He could see they were afraid, so he didn't come near again, but from a distance, he waved at them, and the shrieking started again! I guess if I was a little girl and a big rat all of a sudden was standing in front of me, I'd shriek, too! Bella showed a lot of dexterity when it came to playing a miniature air hockey game. She was surprisingly good and kept beating both David and I. When she got the puck in the hole, she'd jump up and down and we'd praise her. It was so cute! Now Gabby, on the other hand, was content just trying to pick up the puck and place it in the hole and retrieve it. That was the only game they liked. Later we walked down to the end of the mall and there was a really cool play area for young children. The girls liked the little playhouse the best, where Bella washed her hands, gave Gabby a bath and baked cookies.

Love, Sally

p.s. I've attached a few cute pix of the girls. Some are from our visit to the zoo.
We saw a family of Amish and tried to secretly take some pictures. That was interesting! One of the guys wasn't only Amish, but a dwarf, too! (if that's the politically right word to describe him) He really stood out!

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Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart for an oil change. For my car, not me. Yuk-yuk.

As I waited for the oil change I looked around a little bit to see what new goods our Chinese brethren were making us for 75¢ an hour. I went to the in-store office of my credit union, where I withdrew some cash. Finally, to kill even more time I went to the in-store McDonald's where I had a cup of coffee.

As I waited in line for my order I noticed people glancing over at me. As I walked to a table a young Mexican woman, sitting with her two children, smiled at me. I thought, ah, I've still got the old charm (operative word being "old".) Later as I sipped my coffee I noticed the same young woman at the counter, talking to a friend who worked behind the counter. They were speaking in Spanish, and they looked at me, then quickly looked away when they saw that I'd seen them. To tell the truth, I didn't think a lot of it. I got paged to go pick up my car, and that was a whole other adventure, since the clerk couldn't figure out where the Debit button was on the cash register. He had to go find help, leaving me with the store greeter, the old man who says, "Welcome to Wal-Mart," who proceeded to tell me how dumb all of the employees in that shop are. It all got figured out eventually and I went home.

Later on I was in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I saw that my t-shirt was on inside out. My label was sticking out for all the world to see. I was exposing my Fruit Of The Loom! Good lord…no wonder everyone was looking. Too late to crawl under a rock and be ashamed, so I just put the shirt on the right way and went out into my yard to mow the lawn. C'est la vie.