Party With the Family

It was still sunny when I woke up this morning, and hot, but not quite as bad as yesterday. A nice wind helped. I made Blueberry Pancakes while listening to patriotic records in honor of Memorial Day Weekend, starting with Yankee Doodle Mickey. This cute record from I'm guessing the late 70's-early 80's features a young Molly Ringwauld joining the Disney characters and the Disneyland Chorus to perform folk songs, hymns, and a rousing original, "The Liberty Tree." I love the Armed Services Medley, with Mickey representing the Air Force and Marines, Goofy taking the Army, and Donald, of course, representing the Navy.

Worked on my story for a little while after breakfast. Leia is starting to awaken. Her head is pounding, she's in an unfamiliar room, and she's dressed like a vampire's fantasy. She sees Han there, but she can tell something isn't right...especially since he's trying to shut her out of his mind...

Headed to work after a very quick lunch. Work was...surprisingly dead for both a Sunday and the day before a major holiday. I did work on rounding up carts for the first half of my shift. That nice wind really helped. By 3:30, it was so dead, I spent the remaining hour and a half shelving as much of the three carts filled with returns as I could. There were no major problems anywhere, and I was in and out.

Went straight home, changed into regular clothes, then went right to Dad's. The clouds had started to come out as early as half-way through my shift. They were growing rapidly darker as I pulled in. I came right on time. Jodie had just pulled out the first round of cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and ribs. There was macaroni salad, Italian pasta salad with vegetables, that really vinegary cucumber salad Jodie likes, deviled eggs, and (later, when they remembered it was in the oven), asparagus. Dessert included Rose's tangy key lime bars (with spray whipped cream, for those interested), strawberries dipped in white chocolate and toasted coconut, chunks of watermelon, and blueberry pie. I had a little of everything but the macaroni salad (the Italian pasta salad was enough) and the blueberry pie.

Khai and Chloe, for once, gobbled their dinner. Chloe's brother Blake ate even faster. They all wanted to get back in the pool. I followed them out after they ate. Khai took it upon himself to shoot me with his Super Soaker the moment I arrived. I wish he hadn't done that. I hadn't stopped to put on my bathing suit when I came home. Thankfully, there were lots of grown-ups around to set rules - Rose and Craig, Jodie's sons, Dana, Erica, Mark and Vanessa, several neighbors. (Dad stayed inside. He's in the midst of chemotherapy and isn't feeling anywhere near his best.)

I finally opted to sit down and stick my feet in. Ahh, that felt nice. The water was much warmer than it usually is in May, probably due to the really hot weather we've been having. I watched Khai and another boy shoot each other and had an animated chat with Chloe about what toys we liked, which Star Wars movie was our favorite (mine is The Empire Strikes Back), and what the pool was like when Rose and I used to go swimming when we visited during our childhood.

It showered lightly on and off while I was talking to the kids. The rain started picking up by around 7:30. It was time for me to head home. Thankfully, it waited until over an hour after I got in to start pouring. It's been pouring ever since. This is supposed to be the remnants of a tropical storm. Surprisingly no thunder or lighting yet, but lots and lots of rain. It's supposed to continue tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.