I've had this weekend off as I do half the time, and I've enjoyed spending some time with family and friends. I guess I really have to go back to Memorial Day to complete the "I'm a kid and always will be" stuff I set out to write about tonight.
We bought our first house a little over a year ago and one of the joys of home ownership is fix-it projects and the like. My son Zach LOVES to help with these, so when my wife needed a bigger garden space a couple of weeks ago he helped me cut the sod, till the soil, and move the sod to an area of our lawn devoid of grass. He particularly loved hooking the huge rescue sled full of sod to the back of the truck and dragging it over to the balding area. I'm not sure what he thought was so funny but by the time we were done I was laughing so hard at him laughing at whatever-it-was that I had to stop the truck for fear of running into the barn. Today he helped me retill the remaining sodless area so that we could seed it and such - which we did and I must say he is a GREAT grass seed chucker. Ah, the sight of progress...
But then we HAD to do something like that after Daddy (that's me) created another fix-it project quite intentionally-unintentionally while enjoying some guy time during the Monday Memorial Day family cookout at our place. Zach's Uncle Andy, Judd (a friend), Zach, Grandpa Powers, and Daddy all played homerun derby in the backyard. Nothing fancy but we took an old lean wood bat (not the honkin' Louisville Slugger style) and an old tennis ball and made ourselves a homerun line consisting of the peak of the hill at the edge of our yard next to the large ex-church-turned-karate-dojo next door (which served as our Green Monster in left thru left-center field) and the peak of the hills that lead up onto our front lawn (in center thru right)... quite the cool bowl area. Hitting one on the fly into the road counted as 2 runs as did hitting one over the 3 1/2 story high roof of the dojo. Strategically placed in MY favorite hitting zone in right-center field stands is, you guessed it, our house. Round 1 went to Uncle Andy who hit 7 homers before recording 10 outs. Round 2 and 3 went to me with 5 dingers in each round. Round 4 was the exciting one - this one eventually went to Andy who won over me in the third overtime when we tied in regulation at 4 each. In the second overtime, our little fix-it project came to be...
I am batting with one out (we get three swings in each OT) when I get one of my favorite pitches - low and inside - POW!! A laserbeam shot right at our picture window - SNAP! BOING! The tennis ball ricochets on the fly the approximately 60 feet back to where I hit it from and the window is left intact but jiggling like a bowl of Jello. Whew!! Next pitch (another near-perfect one) - POW!! CHINK!! SMASH!! THUD. Doink. Doink. Eeew. Let me explain - the ball was smoked on a frozen rope towards one of the OLD windows in our mudroom. Upon contacting the thin glass the ball proceed to make a near perfect round hole (CHINK) taking that approximately 4 inch round piece of glass with it across the entire depth of the porch (12 feet) and smashing it against the opposite wall (SMASH), bouncing off that wall and rebounding to hit the near wall (THUD) and bouncing to a stop (Boink. Boink.). Eeew. Not to mention it was an out.
Now where is my ex-Portland Glass cousin Eric when I need him? Looks like another project for Zach and Daddy.
Changing channels...
Zach was watching me play some Ghost Recon 2 on my XBOX today and decided to "join in" with his cap gun. As I would zero in on an enemy, Zach would duck for cover and start laying down suppressive fire on the TV until the guy was toast. I didn't think the concept of the video game had really sunk in until I listened to him relay the story to my wife at dinner...
"Yeah! Daddy was doing the Jeep game (his name for any shooter game - starting with the Halo series) and I helped him! Daddy was inside the TV and I was outside! We shot them and they were toast!"
God bless the children!! Including me!!
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