My Wife

Teresa has been in Washington with her parents. She left last Thursday morning with her folks as they drove back, pulling their 5th wheel. They did take 3 days to do it! I'm sure she is eating Tillamook ice cream as I write this. Heck, if I were there I'd be doing the same thing. She is getting a great chance to hang out with her folks and have no responsibilities; her mom and dad are driving her wherever she wants to go and doing whatever she wants, mainly to the supermarket for another carton of Tillamook Chocolate Mudslide ice cream.
Having her gone has been a weird experience. I thought how bad it would stink if she were gone for good. Ugh. You know, there is a scripture that says Is it good that man is alone? No, it is not good that man is alone. And I concur. I always joke that I'd better die before her because I won't be able to take it!
So, it is weird to be dad and mom. Chelsea and Chantel are doing a great job with their sisters in getting them ready and off to school, church, etc. This time around we aren't using paper plates and plastic utensils, mainly because we have either eaten at the Cannon Center with Chantel or people have both given us food or invited us over. Very kind indeed.
Anyways, my wife rocks and I look forward to having her back home.

Inside... My Shoulder!

I went to see Dr. Mortensen yesterday for my post op visit. He was pretty surprised at how much motion I had and how high I could raise my arm. We looked at these pictures of my surgery and he explained what we were looking at. Uh huh, mmmmm, sure. I don't know what the crap it all is. All I do know is the bottom 2 pictures are of my clavicle before and after he worked on it. He said he removed a lot of junk off the bone, which you can see. So, I am just hoping that it all ends up being fine. The nice deal is that it doesn't hurt where it has for the last 6+ months. Now it just hurts where the instruments were inserted into my shoulder. Good sign, eh?

Old Faces

I have posted a bunch of pictures of Fremont Older Elementary School on my Facebook page. I thought I would attach a picture from 1972 (first grade!) and label all those that I remember. So here it goes...
Top left- Pat Raymes, ?, Kjersten, Brian Fischer, Sean Warner, Hank Ford. Next row, left- Kristine, Susie Rhiner, Jennifer Ludwig, Jenny Smith, Colleen. Next row left-?, Anne Gray, Dave Lovvorn, Ralph, Jerry, ?. Sitting row left-Eve Nordstrom, Stephanie Miller, ?, Chris Buchanan, Diane Powell and Me. Mrs. Berg, of course. Love the Mary Hartman look. She was actually a great teacher.

This is first grade. I remember having poison oak so bad in class one day that I thought I was going to burst. Calamine Lotion, that pink mixture, never seemed to take care of the itch and it was always so yucky to apply. My folks also went to Hawaii this year. We had Mrs. Marshall stay at our place and babysit us. She was awful. We weren't allowed to watch King Kong vs Godzilla on TV because, as she said, "It's too violent". Oye. And the other atrocity was about an inch of water in the tub for a bath! Oh, the humanity! I remember the folks calling and we were all on the phone saying how much we hated her when all the sudden "Are you enjoying your trip" was blurted out-- she was on the other line and heard everything we said! So, there you have it.

And Yet More...

My house in Cupertino, CA had a plum tree in the back yard. Every year we would fill up bags of plums (brown paper sacks from the grocery store, no plastic option back then, just paper) and hit the streets selling them for 50 cents a bag or something like that. I hated those plums, actually still do. Anyway, my brother David was up in the plum tree, sitting on a branch and bouncing on it as he was singing the Cheerios commercial, "Gonna have a pow-pow-powerful, good-good feeling from Cheer-Cheer-Cheerioooooooooooosss...." snap! The branch breaks and Dave goes down. With a concussion. Mr. Glass-Head.
Carl and I were walking home from Fremont Older School on the path they made through the acre or so of dirt that was basically a 4 foot wide strip of tar-asphalt that they would make a new layer on every year or so, creating quite a lip. We come upon david laying on the path next to his bike. He apparently had the experience where the front wheel got caught and he went down. We just walked past him, came in the front door and asked my mom, "Why is David's sleeping on the path?"
And we had a punk of the neighborhood named Ronnie Brown. He threw a huge rock at Chris Nordstrom, who ducked, and it tagged David in the head! Blood and gunk. Maybe a helmet would have come in handy to just hang out in for those first 10 years of life.
But as the weather gets nicer I always go back to us playing Hit The Bat out in the street. You know- someone hits the ball and whoever catches it rolls it back to try and hit the bat. When it hits the bat and bounced in the air and the batter caught it before it hit the ground he was still up, but if it hit the ground then the person who rolled would then bat. Rolling the ball was a bit like reading the greens on a golf course- you had to figure for the slope of the street and such. The funny part is we would have a ton of us out in the street and when the ball was hit there would be more mitts being thrown at the ball than trying to catch it! It almost was more rewarding (in a weird way) to make sure someone else didn't catch it! And everyone's mitt had a name- The Noodle, The Crease (Carl could never get a good crease on his mitt), The Slap, The Reach (Nordstroms mitt was unusually long), The Claw, The Utah Mold (my cousin came down for a while to stay and brought his mitt), The Extended Reach, and there were others. Hours of good old wholesome fun. Well, the city let us know for weeks that they would be repaving our streets and on what day we would need to have our cars off the roads. Mrs. Mitchell, for whatever reason, was the only person who didn't move her car. She drove through the fresh asphalt only to have to turn around at the barricade and drive back up the street, leaving troughs and lumps up and down the street! I relate this because many were the cursing of Mrs. Mitchell... once we went back out to play, you'd roll the ball, it being right on course for the bat only to get caught in one of her tire grooves and then horribly missing the target. Bloomin!

Memories, Like the...

As we were driving home this evening, I mentioned to my kids about a Looney Tune from back in the day of that little school kid who sits staring out the window daydreaming during school. We have a bunch of DVDs of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes, but that one isn't on them. When I was young, at 3 pm every day we would watch Bugs & Looney Tunes. Man, they were classic. But, due to the Steinway grand piano that took up our living room, we were the only people I know that had their tv in the kitchen! We had this old light gray vinal couch that the longer you sat on it the more you would slide to the floor. Well, unless it was summer, then you'd just stick to it. We would have kids from all over the neighborhood watching Bugs Bunny at our house, in the kitchen! How I miss those days.
That and playing Ding Dong Ditch. Whenever we all gathered outside in the evening it was always an option. We had two neighbors that when it was suggested to do it to them, there would be a pause, then murmuring and usually a different name would be presented. Well, one night the Jensen's name was thrown out to the usual murmurings, but they had a sign next to their doorbell requesting it not being rung because of the sleeping baby. Well, the gauntlet had been thrown down and we decided to do it. You have to know, we had a ton of kids on our street, so everyone had to find a place to hide and keep still. My brother Carl and I were hiding underneath a bush across the street from Jensen's place. I believe my oldest brother David and probably Chris Nordstrom rang the bell and took off. Jensen came out of his house, extremely TOed. He walked around for a while, not seeing anyone. Carl started to get restless, then, like the quail or whatever bird it was on Bambi that couldn't stand waiting anymore and took off (and was shot and killed) Carl takes off running! Jensen takes off after him. Carl ran into someones back yard. Jensen ran after him. Carl jumped the fence into the next yard. Jensen jumps it, too. Carl jumped fences for the next 5 or 6 houses. Jensen managed for a while, but his gut and general out-of-shapeness prevented him from being able to keep up. Carl slid out the LaHerran's back yard and we managed to all meet up again, terrified of such a horrific, yet exhillerating event. Ah, good times.
Until one night during Christmas break. The Jensen's still had their pumpkins out on their porch! We snuck up to their door and snagged them and started kicking them around. The Jensen's had a pool in their backyard. My brother David thought it would be funny to chuck a part of the pumpkin overthe roof and hear it splash in the pool. Well, he launches a big piece of pumkin only to see it split in half- one piece continuing up, the other right through their bedroom window! We scattered like cockroaches when the lights are turned on. Funny thing is that Jensen walked straight to our house. Huh? Who us?
Busted. It was good for us.

Recent Happenings

This is going to be hard- I am typing with just my left hand; I had arthroscopic surgery yesterday on my right shoulder. My shoulder has never healed from the accident. Dr. Mortensen performed it. He said he had to scrape the clavicle and rotator cuff, surprised at all the inflammation that was still there. I just hope this gets it all feeling better. They did a block, like an epidural, for my shoulder and arm. It was weird not having any feeling or control over my arm! Last night was pretty crappy, but the perkisets are starting to kick in, so if this gets goofy you'll know why.
Jayton has decided this is a great opportunity to launch Operation Fat-Lard to slow my running down because I won't be able to go for a little while. The brownies have already been served and there is going to more junk headed my way soon.
Saturday Teresa was making cupcakes from scratch for the Cosgroves who were having a little do for Courtnie, their daughter who checked into the MTC yesterday. Craig Cosgrove works their as a PT and will probably see her everyday for the next 2 months. That would be weird to come home every day and tell your wife and family how their daughter and sister is doing. Anyway, back to my wife. She got 4 dozen cupcakes made and then started on the butter-cream frosting. She had the mixer on low, added a bunch of powdered sugar and thought she was turning it even lower, but turned it the opposite way, only to have the powdered sugar go flying everywhere. I tried grabbing the camera before she got too much of it cleaned up. My wife rocks.
I got a call from an old friend that we lived next to for a couple of years back in the late 90's. He asked me to create an illustration for his company of Pres. Obama. I read the article that the illustration would be based on and immediately thought to show Obama as a gold miner. Greg agreed and here is the finished project. Not being an Obama fan it was an interesting ordeal. I had to bust out the oil paints so I went out into the garage to paint. It was on Monday, you know, when the storm came rushing in. Jeezers, I was FREEZING!
And who in the heck is in charge of Daylight Savings? They should be fired. Can't we just pick a time and stay with it? Newman!

The Weather

You know, it seems like we get this every year- some time in Feb or March we have a little glimpse of spring and some nice weather only to have our excitement crushed like bug on the sidewalk. It is supposed to start snowing again tonight.
I say enjoy the warmth while you can, even though with all the wind & dust I can barely see the mountains! It has been nice to run outside without freezing.
Gosh, I feel like it's time for a dipped soft serve cone from Macey's!