Squeezito, Suction Crotch!

Remember Todd and Joice from seminary? Of course you don’t. It was like, seven years ago. We didn’t even have child number three when we knew them. To say nothing of them! Heck! They had two and a half new kids since we last saw them. I know it’s not really possible to have half a kid, but they are kinda incredible people. Kid number three was only a few days old when they left the hill. The hill is what those of us in the biz call the seminary. Ok…I guess it’s also not really a biz…more of a school. Whatever. So back to my point…there have been three more children since we last saw each other. I don’t think that was the point either, but it is late and we have passed two different time zones this week. Or maybe the last ten days. I don’t know. You know what else is sad? My internal clock is ALL messed up! I have an odd talent. I can seriously tell you what time it is just by feeling around inside of myself and looking at the sun. And now? Now my talent is gone. I blame the time zones. I have been seriously off on about three different occasions. It’s just lucky that it gets dark at night or I wouldn’t even know it it was AM or PM. Sheesh.

So we went to visit Todd and Joice. They have FIVE kids! I know what you’re thinking. Crazy…with three syllables. Right? You would think so, but they still actually inhabit the sane side of the fence! As we were driving to their house, Joice called me and said that Todd was concerned that we might not know what we were getting ourselves in for because they are, in fact, building a house. Hmm. I started wondering if maybe they didn’t want us to come and visit after all and then thought, whatever, we’re almost there, so you have to love us now.

When we arrived, we drove right past their driveway and had to do a u-turn with 56 feet of vehicle around a church sign in a really odd spot in the road. There was also an inconveniently placed concrete thing that you park cars up against. We had to pile wood up and drive over that one. It was exciting. The kids didn’t want to wait, so we let them run ahead and a bunch of their kids came out to meet them in the lane. With the goats. Yup. Goats. One of them bit me. It was traumatic. Goats have strong jaws and sharp teeth. Ok. It didn’t bite me. But it bit my jeans. It would have eaten them right off of me, but I whacked it with my book. Yeah, that’s not true either. But I had a book. I was sitting in a lawn chair watching Andrew chip bricks apart for the barn floor and it bit my jeans. In the tooshie area. I was obviously out of my chair at this point.

Ok…so, lane, goats, chair…kids! My kids LOVE Todd and Joice’s kids. They had SO much fun together. One may even say that they got along like a house on fire! Andrew became a farmer. I think he has found his calling. He was out every night putting the chickens to bed and tying up the goats. There were horses too, but he didn’t really do much with them. I tell you though, any chance to carry a chicken and my boy was in there like a dirty shirt.

We did a lot of fun stuff with the Lynn family. One day their oldest daughter was in a race in Greenville so we went to watch her and her daddy run. We missed most of it, but did get to see them pass the finish line. There was an amazing river area with a huge scary suspension bridge over it, so we went down the rocks and played on the shore. We collected river glass for Joice’s new profession, which will be doing mosaic table tops. I claim half of the profits since I gave her the idea. We had an apple bag, and the city of Greenville must have a lot of people who hang out at the river with coloured bottles that get broken on the rocks, because we filled that puppy up! We then decided to cross the raging river. It may not have been the best idea. I’m not going to lie to you. There was a big splash (not me!) and some blood (definitely me), and two husbands laughing and pointing from the other side of the river. Eventually we made it across and had words with the laughers. Their defence was “at least we weren’t taking pictures!”

Then the cop showed up. Apparently there were signs posted all over the place saying it was illegal to be on the rocks. My question would be why they put the rocks there in the first place then? The nice officer told Todd that the fine was $1000. Per person. I thought maybe Joice and I could just take the jail time and call it a holiday. Hey…she’s living in a house that’s under construction and draped in plastic sheeting and I live in a trailer. Our idea of a holiday has changed a bit in the past few months. We didn’t get a ticket, but the officer was going to give one to a different guy who had several warnings for being in the river. He got off because he said he wasn’t wearing his glasses and couldn’t read the signs. I figure I will try to remember that one for the next time I get pulled over for speeding. Hey, it worked for him!

Later that night we left Andrew to baby-sit the seven other children. He had just turned twelve and we felt comfortable leaving him with them. We went to the Macaroni Grill. I have always avoided this restaurant because of the name, but it turns out there is absolutely no Macaroni on the menu. I did however find another dish that I am pretty sure Jesus invented and is preparing for the table He will set before us. It is the Pinot Grigio Chicken. It has Roasted Garlic and is breaded with parmesan cheese. Mmm. So just to recap, Jesus’ table now includes Pumpkin Spice Latte, Paula Deen’s Godiva Chocolate Crème Brule, and the amazing chicken at Macaroni Grill.

Macaroni Grill has a wacky sense of humour. They teach Italian in the washrooms over the speakers. I found this amusing. Todd found it a learning opportunity. Suddenly we were inundated with everything being “Squeezito!” which apparently means delicious. We were not really interested in the actual meaning of the word though, as it amused us greatly to just use it whenever and wherever it struck our fancy. You have permission to use it now, too. It is a very fun word to throw out there. Squeezito!

One rather disturbing element of the Macaroni Grill is that the back of the door in the women’s washroom says “Men” and vice versa. Given my previous, ahem, restroom gender difficulties, this freaked me out when I went to leave. The first thing to run through my mind was “Oh crap, not again!” Then I remembered that Joice was with me, so if I was in the wrong john, I was not alone. Whew.

On the drive home, I got a phone call from Andrew.
Andrew- Um, hi. Yeah, Mom. OK, well, um, the toilet is plugged and the bathroom is flooding.
Me- Hmm. Here’s Joice.

We got home and it was raining on the whole main floor of their new house. While praying “Please Lord don’t let this be poop water!” we dashed up the stairs. Andrew was understandably upset and when we assured him that he had done a good job babysitting, he said to me “Mom, I was in the bathroom plugging up the toilet with my giant poo while they were watching a movie. I don’t see that as exactly a great job.”

The next day Andrew and Boaz went out and found a jar full of tree frogs. They dropped them off on the deck with us where we were examining them when someone noticed that they are all suctiony, particularly in the crotch area. This inspired our new saying of the day, which was of course, “suction crotch”. Now not only are interesting things “squeezito!” there are also random mutterings of “suction crotch” to deal with, which is always met by screeches of laughter.

The frogs the boys caught reminded me of my frog scar. Frog scar you say? How can you get a scar from a frog? Let me tell you. When I was a teenager we learned how to dissect frogs in school. I found this to be a lot of fun and felt really sad for my cousins who had never dissected anything, so one day when we were out at our grandparent’s farm, we found an old tin tea kettle and went collecting frogs. We didn’t have a tray of wax to pin the frog onto, so grandma fixed us up with a cookie sheet covered in newspaper and we thought we would just pin the frog to the paper. We selected the largest frog so that all of the organs would be easy to see. That’s when we ran into our biggest problem. My expertise had only been tested on pickled frogs and these babies were still alive. Let me tell you something: frogs do not make an easy transaction from live to dead when you are not using a lawn mower. With that being said, they do apparently get knocked out. I question the wisdom of sharing our method of execution, but since wisdom is not always my strong suit, I figure what the heck. We threw it against the sidewalk. Yup. Keep in mind I was very young at the time.

So, back to the old KO. When we went to pin our “dead” frog to our dissection pan we found out he was not so much dead after all, and someone had to bite the bullet and put him out of his misery with the hammer. The dissection was a success however, and I prefer to think of it as science and not torture. One of the cousins actually became a doctor and I like to take credit for that because I showed him his first internal medicine. Ok…that’s not entirely truthful. He’s a Chiropractor, so he’s not actually practicing internal medicine, but you need to stop judging me. And I guess since his dad is a veterinarian I may not have actually shown him his first medicine, but you still need to stop judging me. Back off.

Oh yeah! The frog scar. When I went to pull “Tiny” out of the tin tea kettle, some of the frogs jumped and hit my hand which startled me and I pulled my had rather quickly out of the kettle and sliced open my wrist. Kind of anticlimactic now, isn’t it. Some time I’ll tell you about my kitten Tippy. That will hold your interest.

Until then, Squeezito!