Sorry, It's Not Cartoon Saturday

Greetings from Dayton, Ohio, where we're visiting our son and his family for the weekend. If you checked in expecting to see Cartoon Saturday, you'll be disappointed this week...all my cartoon files are on my computer at home, and I'm writing this from Agnes's laptop. Sorry about that, but I did warn you yesterday.

Here's what has happened so far:

- Had a good flight from DC to Dayton.

- Grandson Joseph beat me like a cheap gong in a long set of games on the Wii, until I finally beat him at table tennis. I think he was irritated that I couldn't get all the little characters sorted out and the controls on the handsets right, and kept killing all the wrong characters while playing Star Wars.

- Built a large race course out of Legos, then spent a few happy hours demolishing it by crashing various cars into the walls while the whole thing was policed by dinosaur figures glaring from the sidelines. (Jurassic Parking Lot?)

- Built space ships and pirate ships out of Legos, then moved on to major construction efforts with the large fleet of noisy Tonka vehicles stored under Joseph's bed.

- Wrestled with Joe and Noah. Boys four and seven years old are a good deal more wiry and energetic than grandfathers. Ben-Gay ointment is not something one should forget to pack.

- Kept trying to figure out sneaky ways to give Marcy a hug. She's now ten years old, and is not into that mushy stuff, except on her own terms. She has declared herself a "hug-free zone." I'm not giving up. Oh, and she says I have ugly toenails. No politicians in this family.

- Enjoyed a world-class dinner of grilled steak, salad, and corn on the cob. And Tabitha made my A-number-1-all-time-favorite-would-kill-for-it dessert: pineapple upside-down cake. She's cementing her position as Best Daughter-in-Law in the World.

- Agnes made a very spiffy, embroidered dance shoe bag for Marcy...and it took until nearly 10PM to finally get the gold-braided drawstring threaded through the opening. Jason finally got it through. We learned a lot of interesting new German words during the whole thing.

- On the minus side, was very proud of the way-cool Fathers' Day gift and card I got for Jason...but forgot to pack. Now I get to stand in line at the Pentagon Post Office on Monday to mail it (for those of you happily unfamiliar with this particular place, I will say only that Dante would have included the Pentagon Post Office as one of the circles of Hell had he written today). Sigh.

So far, so good.

Today will be a frenetic day, with final dress rehearsals for Marcy's dance recital and all the attendant hooplah. The recital is tonight, and we're all looking forward to seeing our star-in-training dancing on the big stage. Pictures later, if I can get any good ones.

So, sorry about Cartoon Saturday this week. I'll try to make it up to you next week. Stick around.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

P.S. - Still getting the drool off the keyboard. Thanks, Nessa.

B.