Quite a Day

Quite a day today.  It was busy before it all started, with a full and confusing schedule that we were stretching it to accommodate.  And then the unexpected occurred.  But first, the scheduled:  the root canal. Okay, no big deal compared to other things.  Except for it took an hour and a half and that's after waiting about a half hour or so because of a delay from a previous patient.  Anyway, it was a root canal, and therefore a miserable experience - and I got home to find out that Nana was on her way to the hospital.  She was feeling weak, very much so, and her heart rate was all over the map.  A hospital visit was deemed necessary, so the moment I got home, Maddie, Mom and I were on our way to Northside Hospital in Cumming to visit.  That's me and Maddie up top there, sitting in the wait room for quite some time.  It was a big crowd there at the hospital for different reasons, but Nana was already there and we had to wait a while to find out what was going on.  For one, Nana refuses medical expertise frequently and it's difficult to get her there unless there's something serious going on.  And in this case, we learned much later on - after church tonight in fact - that there was in fact something very serious going on.  There was in fact some issues of heart pressure, but there's also a mass on her lungs.  The oncologist there confirmed what we thought - Nana is so frail and weak that there was no point in extensive tests and even treatment.  It's a tough situation, and while Nana is in the hospital, we're left with "let's just take this day by day."

We got back, and Maddie had a big event to go to at FCY.  Maddie and I went down to Gwinnett's Free Chapel where there was a United event for all the FCY locations to join in on at that campus and watch some wrestling!

Yeah, that happened in church.  Wasn't the first time though - back in the day at early Free Chapel, I remember going to see Sting, the Road Warriors and more.  I even got a signed t-shirt from Ted DeBiase, the "Million Dollar Man," who shared a message with everyone afterwards.  Sting - no the singer, but the wrestler - was there with his full make-up on, and it was a pretty awesome moment.  I talked with the the pastors later on and they were commenting on the success of the evening, and they were speaking about how the guys were really into this, although the girls were not as much into the events in the ring.  Maddie, however, was definitely enjoying the sparring.  She knew a lot of it was staged, but still there were some impacts there that got everyone with gasping somewhat.  She loved it though, along with the usual array of carnival rides and food.  It was super fun tonight - of course there was worship and a message.  It was a great night that even ended in fireworks.

We got home late, and yeah, we were all pretty tired.  Big day.

Summer Day Off

Mom and I were cleaning out the prop room today at the church, a really lengthy process given that we're talking about nearly twenty years of storing stuff in the same place.  They're wanting to use the room for something else which means the props in there have to go... somewhere. 

Meanwhile, Maddie was visiting Stardew Valley today.  She got a lot done in the old valley.  Why, she uh... she... what did you there, Maddie?  "I sold stuff, raised animals, sold animals, and robbed people.  Just kidding about that.  I gave stuff away."

So there you go.  That's a quality day right there!  Actually early in the summer it's okay to have these R&R days.  "Rest and Recover Days," I call them, where it's okay to veg in front of a television or play video games.  Speaking of television, we watched the nearly to the end of "American Born Chinese" tonight, which has been interesting.  Maddie likes it so far.  Maddie likes the main characters, and of course given the title of the thing, there's that inherent interest in the show.  It's also always great watching something with the Monkey King in it.  Seriously on a scale of one to ten, you immediately add two points to any rating if the movie/television show features the Monkey King.  So if you're giving the series a six out of ten, it automatically jumps to an eight out of ten.  See how that works?  The same rule applies with pirates, although it's only one point.

Tonight we watched the Sinister Six as well, as Spider-man was dealing with some great Marvel villains all at once.  Tonight's version of the Sinister Six featured Rhino, Doc Oc, the Beetle, the Lizard, Electro, and Kraven the Hunter.  This roster changes over the years, from comics to television shows, and was teased in the "Amazing Spider-man 2," but we never got to see that.  The best allegiance of Spider-man villains was probably in "Spider-man:  No Way Home," where we saw Electro, Doc Oc, the Green Goblin,  the Lizard, the Sandman.  Sadly, only five.  So it wasn't the Sinister Six.  Can't go with "Sinister Five" because there's no alliteration there - so I guess we'll go with the "Forbidding Five" or the "Frightening Five" or something like that.  Anyway, Maddie and I enjoyed the episode - it was fun.

Mom wasn't feeling great tonight, and of course I have to get up early to have a root canal.  We got to bed early, but tonight before sleep, we finished up "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," and Maddie liked it enough that we'll start on "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" tomorrow or the next day.  I think we'll move through this trilogy.  Of course, the "trilogy" has six books in it, and a short story.  I love the fact that it was still called a trilogy when that fourth book came out.  And by book five, it was just a great running joke.  The book is quite a bit different at the end than the movie, but both are good in their own ways.  It's an easy read, and Maddie enjoyed it.  It's such a classic book.  

Anyway, we said our prayers after that, and soon after that, it was time for some sleep.

Memorial Day 2023

Memorial Day 2023 - traditionally the start of summer, and you know something?  It wasn't too bad of a day today.  Not too warm at all, for starters.  We did a good bit today, although a lot of it was around the house.  I was exercising for a bit, and then we were off to see Nana for about an hour, the three of us visiting her for Memorial Day.  She was tired, but animated when she got to talk to her brother across the pond.  We've had a lot of visits with her this week, once with her son George too.  We usually change her bedsheets and bring grapes and chocolates and baby oranges, which she eats a lot of. 

Our patriotic tree is up and plugged in, looking nice and shiny.  We've added a few ornaments around Presidents Day, namely a William Howard Taft one and a Chester A. Arthur ornament, which is currently my favorite because of the Tiffany lamp design.  We also found one of these ornaments at Goodwill, in pristine condition - but I already had it. Still, I picked up a second Grover Cleveland ornament, the one where he had a wedding at the White House.  Anyway, the patriotic tree is up and looking nice, and it'll stay up for the summer to add some festive atmosphere to the room.  We had some patriotic music playing too, of course, our usual Phil Driscoll album, plus the Americana one from our visit to EPCOT so many years ago - it's chorus music with plenty of harmony and all a cappella.  

One tradition is the feast on these sorts of weekends, the grilling out and corn and so forth.  I had the grill up and going, cooking up hamburgers and hot dogs, while Mom was preparing corn, potato salad, baked beans, and all the toppings for our meats.  We had the patriotic placemats out, and it was just a nice little meal for us there.

Much later, we were off to get some ice cream and Mom remembered they opened up a new Dairy Queen about eight or nine miles away.  So we went westward to our new Dairy Queen and got ourselves some new flavors - or at least Mom and I did.  Maddie loves the cotton candy Blizzards, and had one of those to go.

Once we got home, we got to work setting up the fire pit again.  Maddie and I struggled to get the fire started this time, as she used up a lot of her AP World History paperwork and we just couldn't get the kindling wood to light up.  Mom had the idea of using pinecones, and the rest is history - we had ourselves a nice fire going, and that was that.  It was a nice time there at the fire pit - Maddie brought her Madlibs along and we did a few of those as we watched the crackling fire blaze, the sun drift down to dusk, and the moon rise over the darkening trees of our back yard.  Very pleasant evening for all.

It was a good day today.  Maddie and I were reading another chapter or two of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and earlier out on the back deck, I was reading a bit and finished up "Feet of Clay," which was a really good entry in the Discworld series.  Maddie was spending a good bit of time in Stardew Valley, and later on we were watching a few episodes of "Ultimate Spider-man" because it was getting later.  We said our prayers, and got to sleep after that - we've got a pretty busy week coming up!

The Science Fairy

 

We closed out our 2023 Weird Science series with an odd skit about a Science Fairy, which is just one letter off from "science fair," so I thought I'd take it and run with it.  Two students are challenged by their science exam, so the Science Fairy shows up with her Rockettes, who you can see above.  It was a fun little service, one with a show-and-tell bit during Pastor Lance's message, where I was there on stage as Professor Wisenheimer, talking bout all kinds of interesting rocks and their purposes, the point being how everything put on this earth is put to a good purpose.

Anyway, it was a great morning, and a pretty good day too!  After services, we were out there promoting Summer Xtreme, all of us in our lab jackets with balloons and so forth.  Just before everyone was leaving, Maddie posed for this picture here.

It was a fun morning, and we were on our way after that.  We got some grocery shopping in because tomorrow we want to grill a traditional Memorial Day lunch, and we picked up a rotisserie chicken too.  Although Mom always makes these baked potatoes and there are all these toppings available - she cuts up green onions and there's sour cream and shredded cheese, and I spend so long on the potato that there's hardly room for anything else!

Anyway, we caught another squirrel, so it was time for a squirrel run.  We're running low on points with the gas station, but we had enough to get ourselves a few ice creams for free.  So we made the trip, dropping off the squirrel (35!) and getting some ice cream.  I had spent the afternoon blowing leaves in the back yard, and I got the fire pit area looking a little nicer, so as the sun was setting, we sat down around a nice fire.

This was nice.  Maddie had her Mad-libs book with her and we did a few of those by the fire, at least until the sun was so low you couldn't see the words anymore.  And the fire was going pretty good too!  It just took us a while to get it started is all.  I think the regular kindling wasn't quite doing the job, and then Maddie came up with the idea of using her World AP classwork and homework, and sure enough that got us a nice fire going strong.  It's been slightly cooler this weekend, so the fire was nice - perfect weather for this sort of thing.

We watched a few episodes of "American Born Chinese" tonight, and then an episode of "Ultimate Spider-man," because Maddie is all about Spider-man.  Seriously though, it's a fun show.  By then, as you would imagine, it was time for bed.  We read a bit more about Deep Thought, and got to its determination about the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  Of course Maddie already knew the answer:  42.

We said our prayers, and fell fast asleep pretty quickly tonight!

Gibbs Gardens

This morning we went to a place we've been meaning to go to, and finally got to visit there with Nana and Ye-Ye and even Aunt Shain!  This place is about forty-five minutes away, and it is just a fantastic destination.  We weren't planning to stay there as long, but we were there for hours.  We walked around the Monet Gardens, and then spent a really long time wandering through the Japanese gardens.  Afterwards, a field of poppies and then after that an area for roses.  I had the camera, but Maddie was frequently borrowing it - we were passing it back and forth to take pictures, which is why there are so many pictures posted below...!  She even took some with her cell phone too - there was a lot to see.  The weather was absolutely perfect today, cool and a nice breeze, and even n the sunlight later on, just right.

We ate after that, and that was great too.  It was a nice place in the shade, and pretty good food.  The six of us sat there catching up, enjoying the atmosphere and just taking our time eating barbecue, salads, and in Mom's case, a pretty good chicken salad.  It was a really nice time.  

The Japanese gardens were really nice.  They brought back memories of the time we were in China, going through garden after garden there.  It was a great time today - we all enjoyed it very much.  Below are a lot of pictures - a lot of them - all taken at the gardens today by Maddie and me: