MORE FUN IN THE OC

My social calendar is ready to burst.....it's like fitting a whole year into a couple of weeks. My head is spinning and reeling from all the alcohol food, fun, people, animals and hot humid so unlike Southern California weather.

Remember me telling you about my meeting with Jason, Hula Hank, and Pumpkin Delight? Well, I neglected to mention the hootenanny I went to the day before. By hootenanny, I mean a poolside luncheon with some lurker and non-lurker friends from when I worked as a Public Servant at the County.

Francis is not a lurker.....but Francis loves Grandma J.


Then yesterday, my son's father in law dropped off my grandson after school....

Yep, he picked him up and dropped him off in a real live, honest-to-goodness, vintage fire truck. Every year, this retired fireman...being my son's father-in-law, picks up his old fire truck from the 13th century, and spiffy's it all up by spit shining it for an upcoming parade.

Then he let Grandma J go for a spin....

It's his big thing every year. One year the high school cheerleaders rode on top, another year the football team rode, and the Boy Scouts another year.....but always, always, his grandson rides...and his 90 year old father!

Last night, I took Pooper and Beauty to a special birthday party at a RainForest Cafe.

Not just any RainForest Cafe, it was the one at Downtown Disney.

Here they are singing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy, who we will call Wheel...because he's not a tire.

They all had fun and bonded...can you see the bond?

Then we roamed around Downtown Disney listening to music.....

And being so totally silly....

We ended up at the Lego store where you can spend a zillion dollars for a Lego kit to build yourself a vacation home...at the beach.....maybe.

CHAPEL DAY WITH MORE McD's AND POKEMON

Now it was Pooper's turn to take the afternoon off to go gallivanting with me. I went to the school to take him and Beauty off campus for lunch. It was Chapel Day, and the boys have to wear ties, and the girls have to wear their jumpers....at least that's what Beauty wears.

Aren't they just adorable? Pooper is a bit undone, but most of the boys have a hard time keeping their shirts tucked.

We went to McDonald's and they picked out the toy they wanted with their Happy Meals.

Then we sat inside and ate our lunch and watched TV.

After lunch, We dropped Beauty off at school and headed to Target. Originally Pooper wanted a lego Batman kit, was torn between Lego kits and Pokemon sets. I don't know, are they sets? I have never been able to understand a single thing about Pokemon....and believe me, my other grandson in Texas used to have a zillion of them, maybe he still does.

Pooper was extremely excited to find out his packet had two Dialga cards....a big one and a small one. He wanted me to take a picture of both, and of course they both look the same in the pictures.

We bought Elise a Shake Me Elmo, and she is making a blanket out of diaper wipes for him.

Tomorrow I may head to the Newport Pier and do some people watching....eh hem....CBW

NUGGETS AND NAILS

Yesterday I showed up at school to have lunch with Pooper and Beauty. I stopped at McDonald's to get Happy Meals...Nuggets for Beauty and Cheeseburger for Pooper, both getting fries and Sprite instead of the usual milk and apple slices.


After hugs and kisses, mixed in with squeals, we ate lunch and took pictures.

And Christine with her BFF since her first year in pre-school.

Showing off with hula hoops

Pooper and his teacher

After lunch Beauty and I headed up the road to get our pedicures at the same salon we used to go to. Sadly all the girls we knew had moved on to other salons....

This is the finished product....even though Beauty really wanted the dark, ultra dark purple. I told her the flowers wouldn't show up..and picked a pretty pink.

Beauty wanted new flip flops, so we stopped at Payless. She tried on everything there. They had to make the "flip flop" noise. They had to slap her heels when she walked. She settled on a cute pair, and we got some for Little One too.

Next stop was IHOP, another favorite blast from the past. Beauty couldn't wait to see Lon. Lon was her favorite waiter. Lon was an older man with white hair, a big smile, and whiskers that hurt a little bit when he hugged Beauty. Lon always made sure the kids had extra whipped cream on their cocoa, he always brought refills, he was way beyond IHOP and would have done well in any upscale restaurant. When we asked about Lon we were told he was in rehab recovering from a stroke. We said a prayer for Lon and his complete healing.

Come evening, the girls showed off their flip flops for everyone.

Then they danced.

STEP BROTHERS
= SUPER!


I love it when I see a movie that I almost passed up, and end up loving it. Somehow the real critics and I don't see things the same lately. I thought Step Brothers was hysterical and then some. There is a performance towards the end that satisfied a nerdy part of me...but I'm cool like that, and have learned to embrace the nerd in me.


Go see it without reservations, you won't be sorry. My friend Marey reminded me about what a great guy Will Ferrell is off screen:

"Will Ferrell auctioned off an "extra" part in that movie on eBay and the proceeds all went to a cancer scholarship for kids who had/have cancer....so I will see the movie no matter what the review because he donates a lot of time and money to the cause...and also because Daughter #1 gets a scholarsihp from that....and Pooper could too....in about 10 years :)"

Marey's Daughter #1 and my grandson Pooper are both leukemia survivors. They traveled that journey around the same time. So when people like Will Ferrell reach out to cancer kids it means the world to us. So when you laugh your silly head off watching Step Brothers, keep in mind what a big heart that goof ball has!

And because I'm so tickled? I invited the Step Brothers to my aqua aerobics today.

A LITTLE BIT OF THIS.......
......and that

I made me a Wordle today.... I feel so damn accomplished, you know, almost smart. So, because I love you with all my heart, I thought I'd give you the link so you can make one. Please don't think this is a meme or mimi, or mama....it's not. I'm just a kind, loving, sharing, type of person like some of the famous bloggers. Here's the Wordle link again because if you make one, let me know so I can come see it.

Please don't confuse this offer with the infamous Arte Y Pico This is so not that! Besides I'm sure you all have a Arte Y Pico award by now....No? Please, I find that hard to believe. But if in fact you don't, I will bestow one on you. I know it's against the rules, but if you don't tell anyone, no one will know the difference. SHHHH!

Now for the "one of the thats" of This and that..... I sent a huge care package to my granddaughter, Little One, for her second birthday. She will be two, oh yeah, I said that already, at the end of the month, but I like to send packages early because I know it will drive my daughter nuts....I mean I can't depend on the mail system to be swift and dependable because, hello...you've all seen my local post office .

Anyway, I send one much wanted gift, then a few things I know her mom would never buy her, a few odds and ends that I find at The Dollar Tree Nordstroms, and then a little something for Pooper and Beauty.

They received the package, and a few things weren't wrapped..like a Dora umbrella and a three-piece outfit. Little One can't open her gifts yet, but she walks around with the umbrella in the closed position........because no one will tell her what it really is! She thinks it's a friggin stick with a Dora head on the end. Anyway, here's a hint at a couple of the odds and ends.......

Now for the final "that"....

my sweet almost wannabe grandson JJ is a curious little guy. He hops from the couch to the air hocky table to sniff things out.....

Or maybe he's just a sneaky thief. We find these hidden all over the house! You're busted dude!

***if you are a big brother fan, don't forget to vote now!

BLAST FROM THE PAST
or, Life comes at you fast!

My son works for a company that has that slogan along with the saying, ...we're are on your side.

Recently several events have brought the past square in front of me. The first was an invitation to a retirement dinner for a guy who used to work for me part time when he was in high school and college. I looked at the invitation and thought there had to be two Gary H. because the one who worked for me was just a kid! Well, it was the same Gary H. The next event was knowing that my third oldest child was heading to California to attend her twenty year reunion this summer. The third event was the recent passing of my brother-in-law, who was several years younger than me. It's been several years since I've seen him, but the void is apparent. He will be missed, especially by my sister after 30+ years of marriage.

So with these events all coming at me fast, I started reflecting on the good old days, and how different life was when I was a carefree teenager living in Huntington Beach. It was a slower time back then, the town wasn't a resort, and it was sparsely populated due to the lack of employment opportunities. My father was self employed so we were fortunate enough to have a beach almost in our backyard, and the only time there were crowds where on the weekends in the summer, or Holidays.

I thought I'd tell you all a little bit about what being me was about back then, and how I spent my time when I wasn't in school, or doing chores...because we had some real chores, like washing windows, mowing lawns, doing ironing for a family of seven. The kind of things most kids our age did back then. You may think life as a teen growing up in a beach town was a bit different, and it was.

To start, I will tell you what this is, since you didn't guess and missed a chance at the $500 I almost offered as a prize.
It sits on the back side panel of this!
This is the first car Grandma J had. Well, not this car, but one like it in black. It was a 1958 Chevrolet, Delray. The cheapest model Chevrolet made. Seriously. I had to share it with my sister, who was a year younger than me, but it was wheels, and it got us where we had to go. Now, since I was a year older, I had a job, and since I had a job, it was considered selfish for me to take the car to work and just let it sit there doing nothing! So, on my days to have the car, I had to let my sister use it while I was at work, because really? Why should it just sit there! The only problem was, my sister didn't have a job. Which meant my sister didn't have the same cash flow that I had, which also meant most of the gas that went in the car where on my dime....most not all. And hey, just because gas was only twenty nine cents a gallon didn't mean it was free. And hello? Please don't forget to pick me up when I get off work. And, if you have a flat tire, don't hitch hike home and leave the car on PCH. Because someone has to get it fixed, and then pay the parking ticket. Just saying!

The thing is, my job was at night. I worked a dream job at this really cool place called the Golden Bear.
It was many things over the years, but in the early 60's it was a folk/blues coffee house/bar kind of place. I wasn't old enough to serve alcohol but most of the people who came at that time were into the coffee and expresso drinks. The people I met was unreal. Hoyt Axton practically lived there, as well as at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. To those younger readers, he wrote "Greenback Dollar" for the Kingston Trio and "The Pusher" and "Snowblind Friend", both recorded by Steppenwolf.
I got to know Theodore Bikel quite well, and paged for his bigger concerts in large auditoriums. Others who played there regularly were Joan Baez, Ian and Syvia, and Joe and Eddie (they recorded "There's a Meetn' Here Tonight", and "Children Go").

When Grandma J went out at night with her friends, it was to dances at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, which was about 5 miles down the road. Dick Dale and the Del Tones played there on weekends. Dick Dale was known as the King of The Surf Guitar. He had two hits that I remember, "Miserlu" and "Let's Go Trippin", which was the inspiration for the Surfer's Stomp, a popular dance in Southern California. Dick Dale is still around, living in Newport Beach.

So like, is that all Grandma J did? Hang out in dance halls, work in beatnik joints? No way Jose! I was a good student, and eventually got a better job.

Now, this is my granddaughter in Florida, she's an East Coast surfer girl.
These are my oldest daughter's kids, Pooper and Beauty.
and can you guess who they take after? Yep, Grandma J.
OK, so that's not really me.....honest...It's not. But the truth is, I did surf. I wasn't a great surfer. Maybe I wasn't a good surfer. But I surfed. I had my own surfboard. I knew how to refinish it and bought my share of resin and fiberglass...something that had to be done regularly on the older heavier, Hobie longboards. And I used it. Often. That's what girls did if they had an ocean instead of a bicycle.

Today? I still love the ocean, and when I go in the water, it's body surfing only!

"Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing....where have all the flowers gone, long, long time ago......."

MORE CHILD SPEAK
...because I'm stuck on this merry-go-round.

There's a pattern developing here. It wasn't planned because I'm retired and I don't waste time doing silly things like getting out of my Dora Explorer pj's planning my days, or what my next blog will be about. When I try to plan, something else comes up that seems like a better fit.

When I decided to tell you about Beauty yesterday, I already knew what today's entry would be. It's about Beauty's big brother, Pooper. Some of you already know about Pooper because he's had a Caringbridge site since 2003. Others have heard about Pooper on his mom's blog. This coming fall, I will be attending my fourth Grandparents' Day at Pooper's school. Beauty will be attending the same school as a kindergartner, so it will be extra special with mucho partying later that night. Probably something like Rainforest Restaurant. This place is everywhere, and they are all set up the same...and over priced. The worst part is, you can't leave without walking the whole length of their gift shop...that's how it's laid out. So we will be checking our all kinds of exotic snakes and stuff, or elephant slippers.

Here is a picture of me and Pooper in 2006. We are as happy as two peas in a pod can be.

The year before I forgot my camera we did a craft project together. It wasn't some ordinary tracing of our hands. No way Jose! The teacher asked the grandparents to take a seat in a chair that was three inches off the ground and the size of a monkeys arse at the craft table. She gave us one piece of white paper and asked the children and grandparents to draw each other on the same paper. I really can't draw, but I figured Pooper was only four, and I told him he thought anything I did was the best. Anyway, at the time Pooper was wearing a baseball cap because he was going through treatment for leukemia. That's my excuse for the green thing on his head. We start drawing and coloring away. I look over and there's Pooper making my one arm purple...then he works hard on the other arm, with his red crayon. Now, I get a bit curious because, come on, my arms aren't that big. I ask him:

Me: Wow, look at my arms, they're pretty BIG and colorful, aren't they?

Pooper: Those aren't arms.

Me: (as I point them out) Yeah, right there.

Pooper: Those are wings.

Me: (swelling up with pride) Oh, Pooper! You made me an Angel!!

Pooper: No, grandma, you're a fairy.

Later as I was admiring the masterpiece we created, I noticed my legs.....and no, I never asked him about the color. What do you think?