Something to look at while I continue to work on my post about Hawaii

Portrait of a Weenie

Tori took this picture of Jake. He has just spent a life time, or 15 minutes, watching his big brother, Andrew, get his picture taken at a photo studio. Previous to taking this picture he and Paul were playing with the baby toy in the studio lobby. (note of explanation to those who might not have their score card handy: Jake is 4, Paul is 21 and mentally handicapped.)

Another family came in and their little girl wanted to play with the toy, too. It took Tori and I over 5 minutes to convince Paul to get out of the chair so that a real baby could play with the baby toy. Knowing that these particular toys are some of Pauls very favorite toys in the world I bribed him with everything I could think of but it was all to no avail. (food, candy, soda, "I'll tell you a secret", 5 minutes in a video store, another toy, "BECAUSE I SAID SO", etc.) Tori finally whispered something in his ear and he reluctanly got out of the chair so the little girl could play with the toy. (I have no idea what Tori bribed him with but I was actually a little bit relieved to find that he wasn't the one driving the car when we left the mall.)

Tori and I were deep in thought and discussion trying to pick the best picture of Andrew when a certain squeeky voice caught my ear. I turned around and discovered Jake giving the mother of the little girl a tongue lashing because she got his big brother in trouble and now he couldn't play with the toy. I. Couldn't. Believe. My. Ears. I jumped off of my stool and said, "JAKEY!"

This got Tori's attention and she heard what Jake was saying and she, too, jumped off of her stool. We both dove for Jake while trying to tell him that the lady was innocent of all charges but that just made him talk louder and faster. "And we were playing the game and you came in and..." "JAKEY!!! STOP TALKING!" I thought Tori was embarassed enough when Paul wouldn't relinquish the seat but this event bested the previous award winning moment. We wrestled Jake over to our table all the while trying everything short of stuffing a sock in his mouth to get him to stop talking.

We are very fortunate that the mother was very friendly and actually seemed to be amused by being told off by an angry 4 year old. She kept smiling at us and telling us that it was ok...but I promise you...the next time I go to the mall I'm going to bring the duct tape.

Note: The spell check on Blogger is not working so if there are spelling and punctuation errors it's their fault, not mine.

Do you see a little boy in this picture?

Many weeks ago when Tori and I went up to the International Man of Mystery's cabin I took this picture. A few days ago I found it and I wondered why I even took this picture. Hannah is sleeping on the couch...big deal. Then I looked closer at the picture. That blue lump on the orange blanket is Jake. He was sleeping in a manner that you couldn't even see him. He just looked like a wad of blankets. I'm glad Tori knew where he was or I would have been running through the house thinking he'd been kidnapped by a coyote!

Hot Date!

I had a wild night out last Saturday. My sister and I continued our, purely scientifical, quest to find the worlds best chocolate martini. We had sampled the goods at P.F. Changs on a previous occasion but we chose to revisit this establishment just to make sure that our previous test results still held true. (The fact that I had a gift card for this restaurant had nothing to do with our choice of restaurants as far as you know.) So we put on our white lab coats and put surgical bonnets over our shoes and off to P.F. Changs we went.

It was good thing we went back for a second test because this time we were served martini's made 2 different ways. The first bar maid made them with a variety of liqueurs and a splash of cream. They were very, very tasty. We cleansed our pallets with delightful Chinese fare (fair, faire, phare?) Tori had lettuce wraps and I had veggie dumplings. Mmmmm good. Just like mother used to make!

The 2nd round was made by a different bar tender. She lined the rim of the glass with lemon and then dipped the glass in sugar then she used a completely different array of alcohol than the first ones we had. This one had no cream and thus it was see through. As a rule I have always disliked the see through martinis I've been served but this one was pretty good. The lemon on the glass made for an interesting after taste.

While drinking the 2nd martini Tori and I had our usual "laugh till you cry" fits. We discussed family history and family futures and then her phone rang and it was time to go home. I offered my gift card for payment and watched as the bar maid tried several times to get the computer to read the card. She wound up having to take the card to the manager and he said he'd put it in manually. Ok. How embarrassed was I when they came back and told me that there was no money on my card? I'd won that card in a raffle from Health Net Insurance company many years ago when I was still at Charter Oak. The manager told me that there had never been any money put on the card. Ever. Thank you Health Net. I hope you are more conscientious with my health care.

We went home and watched TV for a little while. I fell asleep on the couch, (how UNUSUAL for me.) and I woke up freezing to death a couple of hours later. My lovely host didn't even give me a blanket before putting herself to bed. Take note if any of you ever spend the night at Tori's house...SECURE BLANKET PREVIOUS TO FALLING ASLEEP. When I woke up I decided to get in bed with Tori as she has a huge California King size bed WITH BLANKETS. As I walked to her bedroom I almost broke my neck when I almost tripped over her cat.

When I woke up the next morning I knew I wasn't alone. I could feel breathing on my face and I could hear snoring in my ear. "Jeez TORI...scoot over", I thought, but when I opened my eyes I saw this:

While he was a bit of a pillow hog at least this small blond doesn't meow relentlessly until I get up and feed him.

Dress Up Swan Song

I'm sorry to announce that this will probably be the very last installment of "Dress Up" pictures that will include Jake. I'm sure you can look at the pictures and figure out why.

It's the last time for bath time & our day trip to San Jacinto

On Friday a co-worker told me about an amazing product that would get rid of the fleas on my grown up cats as well as my infant kitties. While I was hesitant to use anything, even water on those little juniors I knew I had to do something before the fleas tied them up and carried them off to parts unknown. So I went to Costa Mesa and bought the recommended product. I went home, read the directions and the ingredients then decided that I would use it on Ashleigh and Uncle Daddy first and then I would tackle the kittens. (How cute I was...look at me thinking I was going to wash kittenS. Plural. Many. All. HA!)

I put warm water in the kitchen sink about 2 inches deep. I have a little tiny mobile home sink so this didn't amount to a whole lot of water. According to the directions on the bottle I was supposed to douse the kitty with the shampoo before getting him wet. And I was supposed to make sure that I got it under his belly, in his arm pits and between his ears because that is where fleas like to hide. At first Lorenzo thought that I was simply rubbing his back and belly and then he felt the moisture of the shampoo hit his skin. MAY DAY! MAY DAY! He was off like a shot but I caught him by the tail. (killing two birds with one stone...I got shampoo on his tail while stopping him from running and jumping on my couch.) I attempted to disperse the shampoo that was already on him but he was acting like the shampoo was burning his skin off. I picked him up and carried him to the sink. His little heart was beating a mile a minute and I knew that he thought that I had picked him up to protect him from any further harm. I felt like a total heel when I lowered him in to the sink. The instant his little pink toe hit the water he was scrambling in mid air. He was screaming and flailing and it is very hard to hold on to a soapy cat who is screaming and flailing. He managed to connect with the screen on the kitchen window and he was not going to let go. In fact, he had planned on climbing UP the screen to safety but since I wouldn't let go of his hind end he changed paths and decided that he'd sit on my head. It only took 2 second and I was covered in flea soap. His tail had hit the water in the sink and that was all over me, too. He had one foot firmly encased in my skull and the other in my back. He had a hind foot STUCK IN MY EAR and the other one was kind of swinging across my face. I let him go so I could assess my wounds. Of course he went straight for the couch so I had to grab him before he got there. I knew that I couldn't just let him go all full of soap so I picked him up and tried to put him back in or even near the sink. The same exact scene replayed it self the following 3 attempts at getting the soap off of him. I have long acrylic finger nails and I didn't want to hurt him so I was trying to hang on to him with the front pads of my fingers. Not an easy task regardless of the wet and soapy factor. I saw a couple of dead fleas in the water so at least I knew that the shampoo was working. No matter how I tried to discuss this with him, Lorenzo just did not want to complete this bathing ritual. He did everything short of writing a letter to his congressman in order to get me to stop putting water on him. When he started to cry in a pitiful, mournful wail I had had enough. I couldn't listen to him cry. I took him out of the sink and tried to wrap him in a towel. Apparently the towel was teeming with invisible flames because he acted, once again, as though I was trying to murder him. He was completely dripping wet so there was no way I could just let him go. I chased him around the house and got as much water off of him as I could.



I figured that if I didn't at least try to bathe Ashleigh then what I had just gone through with Lorenzo would all be for naught. So I emptied the sink and started all over. The debacle with Lorenzo was mere child's play compared to the 4 alarm fire created when I tried to put Ashleigh in the water. She didn't like having shampoo rubbed on her either but she just tried to saunter away. When I tried to put her in the water she pretty much ripped me to pieces. Ashleigh hasn't had her nails clipped in months because she will not let me cut them. I cut Lorenzo's when he's sleeping, just like a human baby, but I can't even get near Ashleigh's toes whether she's asleep or not. I tried everything except throwing water at her from across the room and she tried everything except whipping out a gun and shooting me to get me to stop getting her wet. I got as much of the soap off as possible and then prayed that any residual soap wouldn't harm the babies. I didn't get to dry Ashleigh off at all. She ran and hid under the couch. It was a very hot day so I wasn't worried about her being wet as long as she stayed away from the babies and off of the top of the couch.


I was glad that Ashleigh was hiding because I thought that would give me some freedom to wash the babies. I started with new water in the sink that I actually tested with my elbow. I was so afraid of startling or burning or freezing the babies that I took major extra care to make it just perfect. I got one of the white babies and I put the tiniest bit of shampoo on it and it wasn't 1 second later that the baby was meowing it's tiny little head off. I didn't even have the time to get this baby 25% soaped up before Ashleigh came flying out from under the couch and climbed up my back and started her rescue effort. She kept grabbing the baby by it's entire head and tried to pull it out of my hand. Had I let go of the baby I'm sure it would have fallen in to the water so I had no choice but to try to hold on to this soapy kitten and try to unpry Ashleigh's mouth from it before she pulled it's head off. I had to use all of the strength I had in my fingers to pry her mouth off of the kitten. We went through this in rapid succession approximately 10 times. Ashleigh is nothing if not tenacious. I got Ashleigh off of my back long enough to dip the baby's hind quarters in the water. Then BOOM! Ashleigh is right back up on the sink, scratching my arm trying to move my arm closer to her so she can grab the baby. I rinsed the baby as well as I could with an angry mama cat attached to my arm and then I put the baby in a towel and I dried it and rubbed it as well as I could so that it wouldn't catch a chill. I let Ashleigh see that the baby was still all in one piece and she licked it and cuddled with it and purred to it. This brought Lorenzo out of hiding and he, too, had to console the traumatize baby. While this trauma bonding was taking place I decided to take my wet clothes off. That's when I discovered that one of them had cut me so deep that the wound had bled enough to cause my shirt to stick to my back. Good times. 3 semi bathed cats out of 7. A very poor outcome indeed.




I decided to reward Ashleigh and her babies for their valor by cleaning out my closet and putting her baby box in there just like she wanted. She was very, very happy, yet I'm certain I could still hear her cussing at me under her breath.

Saturday morning I left my semi clean kitty family and went to my moms and met up with Tori and the kids. I had a play date scheduled with cousin Billie and her niece Trinity. It took me a couple of hours to get Tori's kids dressed and wrangled in to the car but we made it and we were off like a herd of turtles. The kids were starving so I stopped at Taco Bell and we had lunch on the hoof. Jake even got his very own soda and he was thrilled to death. Then we made a quick stop at Walmart so Rebek could get an outfit that actually covered her up and helped to make her look like the 15 year old school girl she is instead of the 40 year old hooker she was impersonating. What I thought should have been a pop in/pop out stop at the store turned in to an hour long whine fest. "I'm not wearing THAT!". "Everything in this store is so ugly." "That's not EVEN cute." I finally left Rebekah on her own to find something that suited her fancy. Had I stayed with her she would have wound up wrapped up mummy style in a "Transformers" beach towel. I told Hannah that she could pick out an outfit, too, and it really wasn't any easier to find something that passed muster with her either. Everything she put on she had to pull down to her hip bones or it would "choke" her. That being done, everything she put on made her look like Dick Van Dyke in the dancing penguin scene from "Mary Poppins". After she tried on 5 things that she didn't like I was ready to give up on her, too. During this whole time Paul, who had Jake in a shopping cart, was no where to be found. Usually all I have to do is call his name and he shows up but that was not working today. Every time I realized he wasn't near me I had to go off and find him. When I found him I would remind him that he needed to stay where I could see him or at least where he could hear me if I called for him. This couldn't have concerned him any less. I was thisclose to telling both of the girls that they would not be getting new outfits because we were going to get back in the car and go home. Then suddenly they both found clothes that we could all agree on, and Paul managed to stay close enough to me that I didn't have to go spelunking to the depths of Walmart in order to find him. Jake and Paul found a mini Etch-A-Sketch and they swore they would share it while on our trip to the desert.

The entire way to Billie's house I had Paul holding the Etch-A-Sketch directly in front of my face so he could show me his works of art. How many times could I show enthusiasm for his show case of criss crosses or stairs? I did my best but then I had to tell him that I could no longer be the judge in his art fair while I was trying to drive a car. He was not amused.

When we got to Billie's house Trinity was taking a nap. I asked the kids to play quietly so they wouldn't wake her up but apparently I forgot that I had Foghorn Leghorn with me. It wasn't 5 minutes later that Trinity had woken up and she was not a happy camper. We had an early dinner and she didn't want anything to eat. We had bought her an outfit to match the one that Hannah got at Walmart and she wasn't impressed. When we finally told the kids to find their shoes so we could go to see "Ratatouille" that's when she perked up. We all filed in to the Billie's car and the two little ones were very happy to discover that their car seats wouldn't fit in the car if we all wanted to ride together. I told Jake that we'd have to take our own car and he was crest fallen. The theater was less than 1 mile down the street so I relented and let him ride without the car seat. Jake and Trinity thought they were all that and a bag of chips! Trinity taught Jake to play "I pye". You know the game where one person finds something that they can see and says "I pye something....(fill in the descriptive word)". It was very cute and I didn't want to tell either of them that the word was "spy" not "pye", however I needn't have worried because Hannah, who is not one for Tom Foolery of any sorts, told them repeatedly, but it was made apparent that that was a whole other game.

Once we got the kids in to the theater we divided up the popcorn and soda and explained one last time that they had to remain in their seats through out the entire movie and that they were not supposed to talk.

The movie was very entertaining and the kids did pretty well, however our very own junior Siskel and Ebert discussed the movie with reckless abandon. Fortunately the theater was filled with mostly children so no one complained. They wound up sitting through 95% of the movie and I think that is excellent for a 3 and a 4 year old.

On the short ride home we discussed the perils and the adventures of "Ratatootie" and I'm happy to say that the little ones had a very good interpretation of what they had just seen.

The World According to Jake

This is Hannah and Jake on their very own water slide. It was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys, (for the entire week they had it.) Last weekend Jake told me that he wanted to show me "the punch". "The punch?", I asked, with my brow furrowed. "Yes, the PUNCH", Jake said to me like I was totally out to lunch. I thought he was going to take me to the refrigerator and show me some fruit juice so imagine my surprise when he took my hand and led me out the back door. We walked up to the deflated blob of yellow plastic and he said, "Look, there's the punch." He was pointing to a hole in the plastic. "I PUNCHED it!" "Jakey, how did you punch it so hard?, I enquired, trying not to laugh at his choice of words. "I PUNCHED it with the broom!" I have to give this guy many points for sticking to his enthusiastic convictions. He was not one bit sorry for punching the water slide with the broom handle. I thought perhaps he had fallen off of it and hurt himself and the water slide got what it deserved. Or maybe he was trying to smash a bug that was crawling up the side and he thought he was saving his siblings from sure death. I asked him why he needed to punch a hole in the water slide...and in a tone of voice that told me that I should have known the answer but he'd spell it out for me because I was so stupid...he said,"Because it was YELLOW!"


Thankyou, thankyouverymuch! ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!

mimimimiiii..."ABDDEFG HIKK ETTLE MENO P QRS ABC WXY and ZEE now I know my ABC's next time won't you sing with me!"
Jakey...make your "rock 'n roll face.."
Apparently he's got the Craft Macaroni & Cheese blues....

I look JUST like Bekah!

And this is what happens when you have a teenaged sister who thinks every picture taking ordeal is a photo op for "MySpace":

Memorial Day Weekend part 2

Saturday I had breakfast in Laguna with cousins Billie & Bruce and then I headed off to Riverside with about 1 million of my closest friends. It took me 2 hours to get there. If I didn't have visions of my Jake and Paul sitting at the door step waiting for me with baited breath I would have turned around and went home.

When I got there Paul was dressed and ready to go. No matter that his shirt was buttoned cockeyed and I suspect he slept in his pants...he was ready to go! Jake was running around in his underwear and boy was he proud of said underwear. They were blue jockey shorts, "jus' like Pauls!"

I got Paul's shirt buttoned properly, got Jake dressed and we headed off to the mall for the fun filled day of playing dress up and getting turned down for everything you ask for. It slays me that they like this game. Most boys don't like to play dress up but apparently I've taught them well. So with out any further ado...here is Paul in the outfit he picked out:


This is the happiest picture I've seen of Paul in a long time. He struck a careless pose and wasn't able to think about giving me a camera smile. He looked so handsome in this shirt that I would have loved to have bought it for him but alas...I don't spend $50.00 on shirts for myself...thus I am not spending $50.00 on a shirt for him when I know he'd be just as happy with a Slurpy.

Jake was a total weenie during Paul's fashion show. Of course Paul didn't want Jake or me in his "hotel", (dressing room), so there was a lot of loud talking through the door. I have not been able to explain to Paul that stores do not like for people to photograph their merchandise prior to purchase. I don't know how many times I had to try to shush Paul when he was saying in his booming voice, "HEY AUNTIE, COME IN HERE AND TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE OF ME!" I guess I should be happy that he never said, "Hey Auntie, come in here and take a picture of me in my underwear!"

After Paul's fashion show we moved on to the little boys section. I wrangled both of them in to the dressing room. I was weary of letting everyone in the store know what we were doing thanks to Foghorn Leghorn, uh, er, Paul's booming voice. Did I say Paul? I should have said "Trigger". For some reason Paul had morphed in to a neighing horse and was galloping around the dressing room. For anyone who doesn't know Paul personally...he is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds. Nothing like having a handicapped Clydesdale in the dressing room with you. Jake thought this was great fun and I almost aborted our dress up game, but after seeing this next picture you will be glad that I didn't. Ladies and gents, (like I have even one "gent" reading this blog...) I present to you the cutest 3 year old in the entire creation of all man kind:

Boy in a Bubble

There are very few times in life when things line up just perfectly for me. Usually if I want things to turn out my way I really have to work at it, and even then I'm not always successful. So it is really a gift when I do something completely whilly nilly and it works out. Behold; my picture of Jake, the whirling dirvish, with his face perfectly outlined in a bubble, while he rides his Little Wheel around the patio like a bat out of hell. I was snapping pictures as fast as I could in an effort to just get a shot of him looking up and I got this gift instead.