Chapter 454

Happy National Rat Catcher's Day! 

(Who thinks this stuff up?)

Monday I went over to visit Carissa and Reagan and hope it was a bit cooler than it was over here in Megatropolis. Carissa humored me and we met in Bremerton for a walk along the waterfront where there are bronzes representing the marine industry the town was built upon.

  Reagan is helping this boy.

Afterwards we went to lunch in a restaurant that obviously used to be a bank on the waterfront. I imagine there were long lines in here on Friday's when the guys got their checks. The banquet room was in the old safe. The walls were very solid and it was veery quiet in there. It would be a good place for a meeting.

Afterwards we went to splash around in the inlet by the old Manette bridge in Bremerton. We watched a heron catch fish until the water went out of this area and it was just sand.

Reagan caught a little crabbie.

I caught a bigger crabbie.

We also caught a great big piece of kelp. Reagan has spent so much time on the edge of the water that she isn't afraid to poke, prod, squeeze, or shuttle back to the water anything she finds on the shore.

Since it was hot when I got home, I rolled out the air conditioner and put the cat door I built in the kitchen door as demonstrated by Nitro. Now we can keep cool and the cat can get to his food and box, and most importantly, we can also use the door for our own purposes.

The next morning I woke up to the crows making the most horrendous racket I've ever heard crows make. I looked out of the bathroom window to see what I thought was one of JoAnn's wild turkeys in our yard. The crows were still screaming and the "turkey" was kind of looking around in a daze. To give some perspective, that blue bucket of  bird water out there is 28" across. I finally figured out the "turkey" was a juvenile bald eagle that had nabbed a squirrel off the seed block by the water bucket. The unlucky squirrel was laying on the grass awaiting it's fate.

After a while, the eagle flew away with a very noisy escort of crows hot on it's tail. It took about an hour for the crows to settle down and I could hear them debriefing over the sound of my shower.

Random flower picture.

 I went back to watch Reagan Thursday afternoon so the kids could do something. We stopped at "Burger Habit", per her request, for dinner. She was very excited to go pump ketchup into the little paper bowl and spread it on her bun all by herself. She did a great job of both and got ketchup on every.last.millimeter.of.bun!

Another gratuitous flower picture. 

Actually two gratuitous flower photos. My fingers are in the photo for scale. 

 Next week Uncle Sam is going to send me on an all expense paid trip to San Diego. Yes, the poster below says Parris Island in South Carolina, but their recruiting poster looked a lot more dramatic than our west coast poster so that's what I'm posting. I will be leaving tomorrow for Camp Pendleton in San Diego.

If I live through the experience, I'll let you all know how it went. I'm going on the basis that they are filling our heads with positive Marine knowledge and disseminating us back to the school environment to do their recruiting for them. They can't get their money's worth if I'm dead, now can they? At least that's what I keep telling myself. 

Chris said it wasn't boot camp because they didn't tell me to write my name in my underwear. Since I wanted it to be as close to the real thing as possible, I wrote my name in my underwear. See Chris! It is real boot camp!

Reagan in her NASA space helmet. I'm not sure what that face speaks about being an astronaut but it happened every time she put that helmet on.

 Reagan loves, Loves, LOVES the water. Chris can rent boats pretty inexpensively at the naval base so it's a win-win for everyone. Reagan is ready to hit the open waters

aaand take a nap. She rarely naps and has earmarked boat trips as the perfect place to take one of her rare naps.

Mozzy is watching the critters in his yard. Nothing happens on his watch without him noticing! And Mozzy doesn't do anything without Bear noticing. 

Reagan is taking ballet this "quarter" instead of tumbling. What's cuter than a bunch of teeny-tiny ballerinas in tutus? Reagan is on the right. I'll be in the Marines for her very first recital next Friday and will miss it.

First I met Kyanne for lunch, walking, and shopping on Proctor street then, I met Bob in Tacoma for a meeting and just walked around the Old Tacoma area. It was such a pretty day.

We were in St. Edwards State Park in Kenmore for the All British Field Meet where there were tons of British cars of all kinds. Our car is the second on the left.

These guys have been in our club with their Jaguar F-Pace since they bought it a few years ago. They love bringing it to events and we love that they have brought our old club's technology up to a modern standard.

Since it was super-hot, one of the other Jaguar women and I headed out into the surrounding wooded parts to stay cool and hunt for caches. We found all three caches hidden in these woods. Linda could imagine a shape into a noun better than anyone I've ever known and I am really good at that myself. You do not have to have an imagination to see what Linda saw in this tree. (She thought it looked like a male animal walking towards us.)

  

 I did not take a picture of the old St. Edwards seminary (soon to be a McMennimen's) but you can sure see it in the trunk of this car I was trying to take a picture of!

 Have a good week everyone and wish me luck this week! Hopefully I don't come home with either a cast or a tattoo.