Monday, December 7, 2009

Last Week in Bits

Just a few things that happened to us (or almost, but not quite, or maybe not) last week:



Dognapping! For a brief moment Friday afternoon, I thought the dog we've kinda adopted -- you know the one, scared to death of us, eats food and water we put out, sleeps in a doghouse we built, but won't come anywhere near us -- had been dognapped. Or at least teporarily reunited with its owner before being released back into the wilds of our alley to pilfer food, thus removing the owner from the necessity of buying dog food. Here's the story: There's a lady whom we occasionally see at the Sugar City Post Office. She appears to be living out of her vehicle, or at least stores a lot of paper, rags, and otehr assorted junk in her vehicle. She used to have a van. Friday we saw her in a raggedy old Buick with what I thought was Alley Dog perched on a mound of blankets in the back seat. I casually drove by the wreck three tims to see if it was indeed "our" dog, but I couldn't get a positive ID. Later we drove by again to see the car and dog still parked there, but not before a confirmed sighting of Alley Dog in the alley only a minute before. So false alarm, said the paranoiac certain the Sugar City Bag Lady had kidnapped the dog he's feeding but that won't countenance his presence.

Parrr-tee! Survived the first three of what is going to be a long string of parties, concerts, performances and other messes that presage our holiday season. first was the elementary school concert featuring everyone in the school dancing, doing sign language and singing in their pajamas, including the luckless souls who had to choreograph the event. Of course, with two young participants in said event, I had to be there, and everyone did just great. The singing is typical elementary school (shout it louder, kids!) and the dancing was fun. Best was that I just got to sit and watch and didn't have to prepare or anything. Then had the ward Christmas party, followed up by a family party on my side at my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Med's house in Iona. Many vivid childhood memories took palce in that house, an odd little rambler that like Monticello, seems a lot bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside. Main memories include the night I slept on the waterbed and got seasick, and the same night when I spent part of my seasick time in the bathroom upstairs, middle of the night, throwing dirty clothes down the laundry chute. And my wife ate a baked potato, which is not her favorite food, but she did it for family.

I have to note some interesting differences between our family and my wife's family -- our family spends most of its time sharing embarrassing stries from the past. My wife's spends most of their time sneaking off to other rooms in the house to watch television or to discuss the latest in electronic computer gadgetry. So I'm somewhere in the middle, too shy to share stories and too dumb to talk about technology. Best story of the evening, from one of Albert's kids who wants to write a book about things you thought you'd never have to say as a parent. Her choice: "Give me the booger!" as her daughter was teasing others with a bit of offensive snot. Her husband's choice: "Come over here and let me smell your butt." as a child wandered with a suspected loaded diaper.

No comments: