Kebobs

Mom made these kebabs tonight for us to grill, and before you get on to me for spelling "kebob" a different way than you'd expect, let me explain.  We were playing this online game, all of us, just one of the daily online games that we get into each morning.  This one is called "Phoodle," and it basically is a variation of another game called Wordle, where you have a limited amount of guesses to get a five-letter word.  In both cases, letters are eliminated after incorrect guesses, so that helps narrow down what letters are not in the word.  And letters that are in the word are either shown in green to let you know that's the right spot for the letter, or they're yellow to let you know it's in the word, but not in the right place yet.  We've been playing this game - Mom, Maddie and I - for months now.  We have a group text with others too, and they share their scores or frustrations.  

Anyway, in the case of "Phoodle," the word is related to food.  But the solution we arrived at was "kebab," and not "kabob," and this is one of our primary annoyances about this particular game.  Basically the game takes foreign words occasionally, or foreign spellings, and sometimes you're not ready for a word that's from another language.  Still, we keep playing, and it's a fun challenge, and also part of our daily routine now.

Earlier today we were at the chiropractor for an appointment, and the fun relationship between Doc Williams and Maddie continues on!  There's a "family" room that we usually head to, because there were four of us together, and there's a few beanbags in the corner.  Now Maddie used to - every time - hide in the room somewhere so that each time Doc Williams came into the room, she'd jump out and scream "Boo!"  Today, however, Doc Williams himself was hiding under those beanbags, and sure enough, when Maddie was checking them out, he suddenly reached his hand out to grab her ankle!  She let out little scream, and soon enough everyone was laughing!

It was a good visit, of course.  We all got our adjustments, and Maddie spent the entire adjustment cracking up, as usual.  Which is a play on words, of course, but she still laughs through the process, and of course the rest of us usually laugh too.

We stopped at a thrift shop on the way home for fun.  Okay, there was some looking around for shoes and such by the ladies.  I was looking through vinyl records as always, and picked up another Christmas record for the collection, this one from Kenny Rogers.  I'm slowly amassing a larger Christmas record collection, as these thrift stores seem to be filled with them.  The last time I got a Willie Nelson Christmas album, and before that I found yet another copy of Amy Grant's first Christmas album, which is so much a treasure that I have two.  Oh, and I found a holiday album by Liberace too!  For just a dollar a piece, this is a fun little scavenger hunt.  And yes, Maddie got some new shoes, ones I think she'll be wearing at the upcoming wedding.

Another stop on the way home was a grocery store that had a few healthier choices, so Maddie got some salt water taffy there.  While the rest of us chose some healthy choices.  But nobody could resist the salt water taffy on the way home.  We were listening to a new CD collection I just picked up, the Radio Theater version of the Narnia stories.  It's an amazing collection, and it looks fantastic.  But the presentation itself is so immersive that when listening in the car, you really feel as if you're there in Narnia.  Or in today's case, the city of Charn.  We started with "The Magician's Nephew" today, which we've all read before.  But this version of the story is acted out with sound effects and actors in a radio theater that really takes you through these stories.  It's so good you sort of linger in your car a little longer after it has stopped in the parking lot or garage, just so you can finish a portion of the story.

We got home and forgot to bring in the hanging birdhouse, and those vile squirrels got to it, reaffirming my belief that squirrels ruin everything for everyone.  In a few days though, we're about to get a new thing in the house that will terrify those squirrels, and we're pretty excited.

Tonight Maddie and I finished up with the LEGO Force Awakens, and to complete the theme I had some Star Wars Frosted Flakes.  Did you know that Tony the Tiger was a jedi?  Or... it could be that he's secretly a Sith.  I'm not sure.  The box cover shows Tony where he's on one half a jedi and the other half a Sith.  The flakes inside are half chocolate and half not.  One hint as to where this all leads is the milk, which becomes all chocolate, and all corrupted by the dark side!  Tony the Tiger must be dealt with.  I believe he's after all the younglings, and we must stop him!

Anyway, I grilled out for dinner, just as we started this blog out saying.  Mom had the kebabs, or kabobs, and I did some hot dogs for Maddie too.  And myself.  I love a good hot dog on a grill, and Hebrew National makes the best hot dogs.  It was a quiet day, but it was a nice one.  I did the treadmill walking to a lighthouse on Kauai, and tonight we really got into the next book of our series, "The Prisoner's Dilemma."  Our main characters are quarantined, frustrated, longing to escape to some sense of freedom.  Which sounds familiar.  After reading, we said our prayers, and were off to bed once more, along with the usual routines we still follow.  It was a nice day today.