Ready, ALL SKATE!

(No, the child does not have make-up on -- it's just my cellphone taking super bright pictures and making her rosy cheeks look like circles of pink make-up!)


I hate being perpetually lost. It's incredibly frustrating.

So I set out for the skating rink this morning for my niece's 6th birthday party, and I'm running a bit late, which is odd, because I'm usually a little bit early, so I should have known something was up. I get to the skating rink and see my mom's car, so I park next to her. (She has driven to this rink because I told her which rink to go to and how to get there.) I get inside and my mom has just arrived, too, which is odd, because she's usually a bit early as well. We ask for the Katy Rose birthday party and they say they have no birthday parties scheduled. Now, this rink is the EXACT freakin' rink where I took Kate to her kindergarten skate party two weeks ago, so I'm positive we're in the right place. They let my mom in to the rink to look around, and she comes out and tells me nobody is in there. Hmmm...better call brudda.

Chip: "Hello."

Jess: "Where are you guys? We're at CalSkate off of Stockton Boulevard where I brought Kate for her kindergarten skate party."

Chip: "Ummm, we're at King Skate in Elk Grove."

Jess: "Crap. Okay. How do I get there?"

So Chip gives me directions and I start off with mom following me. I'm driving, and driving, and driving some more, and I figure, well, fuck, I've managed to get lost again, since I've been driving for 20 minutes! Better call brudda again.

Chip: "Hello?"

Jess: "We've just passed Elk Grove Boulevard – am I on target?"

Chip: "You were supposed to turn on Elk Grove Boulevard and then hit Franklin, turn there and deadend into Bilbay."

Jess: "Wait a minute. You told me to take Stockton to Franklin and go left, and that Franklin deadends into Bilbay! Am I freaking lost AGAIN?"

Chip: "Oh, you’re on Franklin? I’m sorry – I’m turned around, too. Okay, go south on Franklin for about a mile and then turn west on Bilbay and you’ll deadend into the rink."

Jess: "Jesus. Can I borrow your compass? Damn man directions. Can you just tell me which way to turn on Bilbay?"

Chip: "Oh – stay on Franklin for a mile and turn right on Bilbay."

Jess: "Okay. We’ll see you at SOME FREAKIN’ POINT. MY GOD. I AM SO FREAKING TIRED OF BEING LOST ALL THE DAMN TIME!"

Chip: "Don’t get pissy with me. The name and address of the skating rink are on the invitation that I personally handed to you two weeks ago. Ever heard of a little thing called "Mapquest?’"

Jess: "GAAAAHHHHHH!!!! Okay. See you in five."

This party was seriously fun. I so love to watch children playing hard, and these kids were working hard at playing! Lots of smiles and sweaty brows with flushed cheeks aplenty, as is evidenced by the photo at the top of this page! First they ate pizza and had drinks. Then they skate, skate, skated their little hearts out!

(I did not skate because last Tuesday night Kate and I had a waterfight in the bathroom while I was giving her a bath, and I didn’t quite get up all of the water so I ended up damn near doing the splits and torking my right knee. When I’m with her it’s like I’m a 39-year-old kid! So I do stupid shit and hurt myself on a regular basis.)

After skating they called Kate up to the sound booth where she got to talk on the mic, and they gave her a princess crown and wand, and everybody sang her happy birthday. She looked just as cute and overly excited as she could be! After that we had cake and ice-cream and opened presents. Then, they called all the kids to the floor without their skates and had them dance in their socks. It was a line dance for kids, and it was HILARIOUS. All these kids from 6 to 9 years of age are out there trying to follow the dance instructions, and they are all going in different directions. Hilarity ensued!

Dancing was followed by bouncing in a bouncy house and riding on these ingenius little scooters that are very low to the ground and propelled by body movement. The kids sit on the seats, which have a metal bar protruding out of the front and connected to handle bars with the handle bars coming back far enough on the sides so that the kids could hold them. Then they basically wiggled their bodies and moved the handlebars and could get these scooters going at a pretty good clip. They looked like a bunch of ants scattering to the four corners of the rink – very funneee!

(I thought how fun it would be if I could ride one, too, but they were truly child-sized, and I didn’t want to have to ask the rink personnel, "Um....is my butt supposed to hang over the sides and drag along the rink floor? Because it’s putting a serious hitch in my getalong." *snork* I crack myself up! Ahem.)

All in all it was a very fun day. There’s nowhere I’d rather be on a Saturday than watching my niece having a ton of fun – it just warms my heart and immediately returns everything to perspective.

88, and Still Kickin' High!

This is a verbatim cut and paste of a portion of an e-mail I just received from my Great Aunt Genie, who is 88 years old and just moved into a retirement home in Northern California. All of the bolding, caps, abbreviations, etc., are hers. She is an absolute hoot -- still so full of life. I wanna be like her when I grow up.
*******************************

This is a sorta generic update to let you know that I made it here in one piece and am almost back to the e-mail bizness. I won't have hispeed til Thurs tho so I'm not too excited about email yet. But this'll give ya a brief idea of what's going on:

I'm really making myself right at home: The second day here I was informed that the woman in the next door apt had broken her leg and is in the care center temporarily but was doing so well she is expected home soon. Well, that nite I was awakened at 2:30AM to LOUD, RAUCOUS TV! I tho't," She must be home, but surely she couldn't do that in the care center and there are noise restrictions thruout so why is she doing that?" I pounded on the wall, to no avail. By 4 AM I was fed up and decided that there's no way I could put up w/that so we'd better have a little chat. I put on a robe and headed for the door, at which point I became aware that IT WAS MY TV! Somehow during the move and furniture placement the alarm on my TV had been turned on! I didn't even know it had an alarm!!! Fortunately I'm in a corner unit so there was only the absent neighbor and one upstairs who were in a position to be disturbed. I went upstairs the next AM to apologize to that neighbor but she says she didn't hear it!!!

Did I tell you this is a retirement home run by the Episcopal church? It's in a very beautiful setting on a steep hill in Los Gatos. Bill insisted that I come here for the view, if nothing else. The people are very friendly, the staff is friendly and the food is good. What more could I want? Well, within reason, that is! One of the residents offered to take me to church yesterday and I accepted. The first thing she said as she was backing out of the parking space was, "I've hit 6 cars so far...one more and I quit!" Then she went on to tell me about taking her driver's license test and how she had a very friendly tester. She was asked if she needed to wear her glasses but she, the driver, decided to see how she did w/out 'em. She could identify the first letter called upon to name but when asked to identify another one she simply had NO idea what it was and started to say."Oh, I have no idea!" but she no sooner got the "OH" out when the tester said,"Fine, you pass." The letter was "O".........You can imagine how much confidence I had in her driving tho! Now I've got to think of excuses to not drive w/her again.

P.S. - When I pictured her putting on her robe to go give the neighbor a piece of her mind, water almost shot out of my nose. The woman is 5' nothin' and a little slip of a thing! Go Aunt Genie!

Okay, You Drive

Characters: Granny (my mom), Auntie Jess (me), and Kate (my niece)

Place: Ice-cream shop after "Girls' Night Out" dinner

CONVERSATION:

Kate: "Granny - have a bite of my ice-cream!"

Granny: "I'm pretty full, I think I'll pass. But, thank you."

Kate: "No really, Granny, it's very, very good," said with wide blue eyes trying desperately to convey the absolute goodness of the ice-cream.

Granny: "You know, Kate, I'm full up to here," puts hand at eyebrow level. "And I'm afraid if I eat any of your ice-cream, it's going to come out of my eyes."

Kate: "Out of your eyes???!!!" said with HUGE blue eyes as she cocks her head to the side, little 5-year-old brain trying to comprehend this.

Granny: "Yes," pointing to tear ducts, "it will come out right here like when you cry tears."

Kate: "I've never seen that before. Do it -- I want to see ice-cream come out of your eyes!"

Granny: "Well, if I do that, I can't drive us home and we'll have to walk. And, your house is pretty far away."

Kate: "Oh. I don't want to walk super far."

Kate's brain: "Think, think, think," smoke is practically coming out of her little ears.

Kate: "Hey," looking over at me, "you drive, right?"

Auntie: "Yes, I do."

Kate: "And you can drive Granny's car, right?"

Auntie: "Yes, I can."

Kate: "Okay, Auntie, you drive us home. Granny, go ahead and eat the ice-cream - I want to see it come out of your eyes!"

Auntie: "SNORK!"

Granny: "GUFFAW!"

Kate: "What's so funny???"

Clever little child that one.