Caught In The Act

"Helloooo, Food-Givers. What are YOU doing here?"

Do you know what the cats do when you leave your Mansion for
five days? No, it's not a riddle. I'm really asking. Let me answer
for you: They play ice hockey. In formal wear. On the swimming pool.














Who knew? The ritual seems to be to walk all around the humpy
thingy in the middle that floats and holds up the pool cover. Some
water melts around that ring, and the cats think something is moving
under there. They are fascinated. They bat at it with their gloved
hands, and then lick their toes when they get wet. Next thing you
know, a piece of ice breaks off. It is great fun to swat at the ice
puck, then chase it across the pool to swat it again.

Here's something else you may not know. Computers, video games,
cable TV, books, board games, brother-fighting, marshmallow-
roasting, lying under the fold-out couch, and balloon volleyball
are not enough to keep two boys occupied at Grandma's house
for 5 days. Again, who knew?

There was a dramatic aviation accident yesterday.
















Lucky for us, it was captured by a roving photographer. Rumor
has it that the photographer was also the pilot. I will vouch for the
authenticity of the photo. No deafening screams of joy such as I
heard could have been manufactured to fake such a crash. Both
photographer/pilot and his air traffic controller did the happy dance.
"Quick! Bring me my camera before it falls!" Remember what it
was like to be a kid? Me neither.

Here's a couple of stories I forgot to tell you, what with my mind
addled from being out of the Mansion and force-fed snacks 24/7.

My sister, the Mayor's wife, went to her school to catch up on a
little work on Saturday morning. Funny thing, every teacher in her
district has a key to the building. I don't know why our teachers
can't have them. Apparently there has been a previous incident
of teachers getting into the building and working willy-nilly, making
copies for their classrooms, planning lessons, entering grades, and
whatnot.

Anyhoo...as she entered the building, she saw a mess of spiderwebs
hanging from the ceiling just inside the main door. She pushed them
aside, thinking "We have only been out of school two days. How can
we have so many spiderwebs?" She looked up, and saw that part of
a ceiling tile was gone. It was melted ceiling-tile stuff, not spiderwebs,
hanging down. Up in the black hole, she saw some glowing embers.
When she opened the door to her classroom, it was full of smoke.
She tried to call an administrator, but the number was unlisted. Hmm...
I didn't know they could do that. Ours is listed. But then again, we
don't have keys, so there is not a multitude of patrons calling to report
teachers running willy-nilly about the school.

She finally got ahold of a board member's wife, who relayed the info
to the board member, who contacted the administrator, who called
some custodians. They came into her classroom, what with it being
the nearest one they had access to, and opened up the windows for
ventilation. She was none too happy about that, as it was around 20
degrees, and the wind whistling through the windows and out the door
made it hard to get much work done. She left the custodians working
willy-nilly, having done her part by saving the school.

Another thing I forgot to report concerns my doctor's visit. After poking
and thumping and quizzing me, he asked out of the blue, "How old are
you?" I answered truthfully, because hey, he's my doctor, and he might
just cut me open to count the rings. Upon hearing the grand total, did
my kindly physician tell me that my social security number was "1", or
that if he told me to act my age, I would drop dead? No. He said, "Oh,
you don't look it!" WooHoo! I'm a medical miracle! Ain't it grand,
Mabel? Cause you don't look your age either, whatever it may be.
We must be drinking from the Fountain of Youth. Or else we're pickled
and well-preserved.

In case you couldn't tell, with my return to creative posts: our electricity
is back! It happened around 9:00 this morning. I think 110 hours without
light and heat and water and TV and computer was long enough.
But who's counting?