We have met a number of great friends here at the RV park, and one couple, Dave and Mary Anne, asked us to come over Sunday and watch the Super Bowl with them. Actually they asked me to come over to watch the game with Dave and a few buddies. They asked Mary Lynn to come over and keep Mary Anne company, since neither of the ladies enjoys football.
Actually that's not entirely true, MLA enjoys football when her boys are playing or her girls are cheer leading. Beyond that, forget it. She enjoyed all the sports our kids played over the years: baseball, football, soccer, swimming, cheer leading competitions, softball, lacrosse, basketball; you name it and she enjoyed all of the kid's sports. Except, that is, for wrestling. She did not enjoy watching the boys wrestle.
She just can't handle seeing any of her offspring hurt. As you probably know, wrestling involves a lot of personal effort, strength, flexibility, and speed. One wrong move and you can find yourself in a lot of pain and about to be pinned. More than once MLA would scream and close her eyes when one of our boys appeared to have their bodies tied in a knot by their opponent.
On one occasion I had to physically keep her from running onto the mat to protect one of the boys who was caught in something called an 'arm bar' move. Basically the move has one of three outcomes: a) your arm breaks b) your shoulder pops out of the socket, or c) you get pinned. Boys being stubborn, and our boys are especially stubborn, typically resist getting pinned by making a lot of verbal noise (grunts, groans, hoots, etc) and a holiday parade of anguished facial expressions.
It can be pretty painful for the participants and their parents; MLA was ready to go down and smack the young man who was in the process of breaking the arms and/or pinning one of her sons. That's just the kind of mom she is.
That's a long way of telling you that if our kids are involved in a sport/activity, MLA loves the sport. Otherwise, forget it. She has no interest in watching sports anytime, anyplace. Give her tickets to the Olympics and she'd be one of the people you seeing wandering around looking at all of the cultural exhibits and shopping for discounted items at the bazaar. And the tickets you gave her would have been sold on eBay...
So while the guys were watching the Super Bowl, MLA & Mary Anne went shopping. MLA said it was great because the stores were almost entirely empty AND the discounts at the stores were especially steep.
While we were with them on Sunday, MLA agreed to go to a lapidary class with Dave this afternoon. Dave normally plays water volleyball however he had a hip replacement about 10 days ago, so no water volleyball for him.
The two of them went to the class together, the first time for each of them, while I played, you guessed it, water volleyball. MLA really enjoyed the class and made an earring. Not a pair of earrings, just a single earring. I'm truthfully not sure if there will ever be a match to the earring she made today. This one could end up on eBay for all I know.
The lapidary instructor started by showing all the new students around the classroom, explaining the various pieces of equipment and pointing out various rocks & gems collected by himself and others.
While he was helping someone else on the other side of the room, MLA picked up some of the rocks to look at them more closely. The instructor hurried back over and explained that you never, ever, pick up someone else's rocks and you can only touch someone else rock's if invited(insert you own joke here). If someone wants you to see thier rocks, they will place it into your hands.
Apparently the rocks are fragile if dropped and collector's develop quite an affection for their rocks. It might look like just a pile of rocks and dust to you and me however, to the rocks owners there are valuable items hiding inside the rocks, just waiting for the person with the right skills, patience, and attention to detail to release them from the surrounding material.
Similar to when a master sculptress was asked how she made such beautiful statues, she replied earnestly "It simple. I just cut away everything that's not part of the masterpiece I see in my mind's eye". How would you like her for an instructor?
Anyway, once MLA learned not to play with other people's stuff, the class went very well. She selected a rock she liked and had a 1/4" slab cut from the rock. She then proceeded to saw, cut, grind and polish the stone before attaching said gem to an earring. Looks great.
Actually that's not entirely true, MLA enjoys football when her boys are playing or her girls are cheer leading. Beyond that, forget it. She enjoyed all the sports our kids played over the years: baseball, football, soccer, swimming, cheer leading competitions, softball, lacrosse, basketball; you name it and she enjoyed all of the kid's sports. Except, that is, for wrestling. She did not enjoy watching the boys wrestle.
She just can't handle seeing any of her offspring hurt. As you probably know, wrestling involves a lot of personal effort, strength, flexibility, and speed. One wrong move and you can find yourself in a lot of pain and about to be pinned. More than once MLA would scream and close her eyes when one of our boys appeared to have their bodies tied in a knot by their opponent.
On one occasion I had to physically keep her from running onto the mat to protect one of the boys who was caught in something called an 'arm bar' move. Basically the move has one of three outcomes: a) your arm breaks b) your shoulder pops out of the socket, or c) you get pinned. Boys being stubborn, and our boys are especially stubborn, typically resist getting pinned by making a lot of verbal noise (grunts, groans, hoots, etc) and a holiday parade of anguished facial expressions.
It can be pretty painful for the participants and their parents; MLA was ready to go down and smack the young man who was in the process of breaking the arms and/or pinning one of her sons. That's just the kind of mom she is.
That's a long way of telling you that if our kids are involved in a sport/activity, MLA loves the sport. Otherwise, forget it. She has no interest in watching sports anytime, anyplace. Give her tickets to the Olympics and she'd be one of the people you seeing wandering around looking at all of the cultural exhibits and shopping for discounted items at the bazaar. And the tickets you gave her would have been sold on eBay...
So while the guys were watching the Super Bowl, MLA & Mary Anne went shopping. MLA said it was great because the stores were almost entirely empty AND the discounts at the stores were especially steep.
While we were with them on Sunday, MLA agreed to go to a lapidary class with Dave this afternoon. Dave normally plays water volleyball however he had a hip replacement about 10 days ago, so no water volleyball for him.
The two of them went to the class together, the first time for each of them, while I played, you guessed it, water volleyball. MLA really enjoyed the class and made an earring. Not a pair of earrings, just a single earring. I'm truthfully not sure if there will ever be a match to the earring she made today. This one could end up on eBay for all I know.
The lapidary instructor started by showing all the new students around the classroom, explaining the various pieces of equipment and pointing out various rocks & gems collected by himself and others.
While he was helping someone else on the other side of the room, MLA picked up some of the rocks to look at them more closely. The instructor hurried back over and explained that you never, ever, pick up someone else's rocks and you can only touch someone else rock's if invited(insert you own joke here). If someone wants you to see thier rocks, they will place it into your hands.
Apparently the rocks are fragile if dropped and collector's develop quite an affection for their rocks. It might look like just a pile of rocks and dust to you and me however, to the rocks owners there are valuable items hiding inside the rocks, just waiting for the person with the right skills, patience, and attention to detail to release them from the surrounding material.
Similar to when a master sculptress was asked how she made such beautiful statues, she replied earnestly "It simple. I just cut away everything that's not part of the masterpiece I see in my mind's eye". How would you like her for an instructor?
Anyway, once MLA learned not to play with other people's stuff, the class went very well. She selected a rock she liked and had a 1/4" slab cut from the rock. She then proceeded to saw, cut, grind and polish the stone before attaching said gem to an earring. Looks great.
And actually, MLA shared with me later that it is a pendant, not an earring -- my bad...
I do have to let you know I'm in the dog house with MLA. You may remember we went gem mining several times last year while travelling throughout the US. MLA amassed quite a collection of rocks, gems, & minerals. We had a blast digging and searching for these stones and MLA is quite enamored with them, more than I knew apparently....
We proceeded to haul those gems & rocks around the US and back to Maryland; all-in-all it is probably 25-30 pounds of stone. I know some of those rocks were lugged over 4,000 miles. Well, somehow, that bag of rocks was left behind in Maryland when we hit the road in early January. I'm sure I really wanted to bring all of those rocks with us again but somehow I overlooked them when packing. Come on, it was an accident...
MLA shared the following observation with me; in fact she shared it with me several times in case I didn't hear or understand the first 5 times. She let me know that the best and highest quality stone available for her to work on in this class didn't come close to the worst of the gem rocks she had collected last year. And it was my fault she now had to use 'inferior quality' gem stones for her projects.
Not that she had strong feelings about me leaving her gems behind. So now I have to have one of the kids pack up the 25-30 pounds of MLA's gem stones/rocks and send them to me, from Maryland to Phoenix.
Can't wait to see that bill.
Plus have you ever picked up a heavy package from the Post Office? They look at you as if you, and your heavy box, are personally responsible for every ache and pain they have suffered throughout their career. And forget trying to explain that your continued use of the Post Office keeps these folks employed.
Apparently their employment contract guarantees employment even if there are no letters or packages being sent through the mail....
In any case, I'll soon be doing my part to keep the postal workers (and their chiropractors) employed. Most importantly however will be the fact that I'm getting out of the dog house with MLA.
I do have to let you know I'm in the dog house with MLA. You may remember we went gem mining several times last year while travelling throughout the US. MLA amassed quite a collection of rocks, gems, & minerals. We had a blast digging and searching for these stones and MLA is quite enamored with them, more than I knew apparently....
We proceeded to haul those gems & rocks around the US and back to Maryland; all-in-all it is probably 25-30 pounds of stone. I know some of those rocks were lugged over 4,000 miles. Well, somehow, that bag of rocks was left behind in Maryland when we hit the road in early January. I'm sure I really wanted to bring all of those rocks with us again but somehow I overlooked them when packing. Come on, it was an accident...
MLA shared the following observation with me; in fact she shared it with me several times in case I didn't hear or understand the first 5 times. She let me know that the best and highest quality stone available for her to work on in this class didn't come close to the worst of the gem rocks she had collected last year. And it was my fault she now had to use 'inferior quality' gem stones for her projects.
Not that she had strong feelings about me leaving her gems behind. So now I have to have one of the kids pack up the 25-30 pounds of MLA's gem stones/rocks and send them to me, from Maryland to Phoenix.
Can't wait to see that bill.
Plus have you ever picked up a heavy package from the Post Office? They look at you as if you, and your heavy box, are personally responsible for every ache and pain they have suffered throughout their career. And forget trying to explain that your continued use of the Post Office keeps these folks employed.
Apparently their employment contract guarantees employment even if there are no letters or packages being sent through the mail....
In any case, I'll soon be doing my part to keep the postal workers (and their chiropractors) employed. Most importantly however will be the fact that I'm getting out of the dog house with MLA.
See Ya!
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