1. NEVER BUY CHEAP DUCK TAPE.
(A friend in Oregon said “Don’t ever travel without a roll in your suitcase either.” In Mexico she and her husband lost a fender on their rental car and taped it back on with duck tape. No incident occurred, and the rental company didn’t complain.)
2. NEVER GO TO THE DMV WITHOUT EATING BREAKFAST.
Seven hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles--well that included running home for additional data--but after seven hours DD and I, with BD in tow, emerged VICTORIOUS with our California driver’s licenses in hand.
The pickup truck didn’t pass its smog test, and needed a new catalytic converter. That’s done. The car registration is done, the truck needs weighed and checked and in need of another member of this family to stand in line.
After we got our driver’s licenses, DD and I went to LA and bought two season tickets to Disneyland. (With a California license it costs about half.) Now we can pop into the park, spend a couple of hours, run around, let Baby Darling play, and leave with our brains still intact.
Since our trip to Disneyland last April, my other grandson who will be five this month, has been building rides. His Tower of Terror knock-off called The Tower of Loveliness (so as not to frighten his mother) is at last count 7 feet tall and made of K’NEX, a building toy, sort-of like Tinker toys, only made of plastic and so complex you know some creative engineer had fun delighting kids and driving adults nuts. Obviously a ladder is involved. We expect pictures.
At Disneyland Grandson number one saw the burnt-out building that is The Tower of Terror. We told him it was fake, but scary and none of us were going on it. That just fixed it in his mind of course. On TheTower of Terror ride, an elevator falls eight stories, goes up, falls again, over and over. If that isn’t enough, at the top of the building doors sling open and the ride catapults the entire row of seats outside the building hanging those eight stories over the park. It gives you time to scream, jerks you back inside and drops you those eight stories. Nope, not for a four year old.
I know of what I speak, I’ve been on that ride. A little girl about eight years old came off the ride excited like it was the best thing invented, and ran back to go on it again. I figured if she could do so could I.
Right!
Our Disneyland great balloon adventure came for Baby (Little Boy) Darling when we bought him a Minnie Balloon—it’s Minnie for him, not Mickey. You know how they have weights now to keep balloons from blowing away? Well, not twenty feet from the vender and the string came loose and Minnie floated way up over the rooftops and into the far blue of the sky. We watched it from afar, like a hot air balloon we often see hanging over the vineyards. The vender told us to go to “City Hall” and they would give us a voucher for another balloon. While waiting in line at “City Hall,” BD told his story to the little girl in front of us. If she took her attention from him, he just got in front of her and continued, “Doddo aberginix, wallooo, uh, uh, Minnie, Oh, Oh,” and pointed up.
The couple and the little girl weren’t too interested—you know how some people gush and are interactive, and love talking to children, and some don’t?
These didn’t.
BD, though, persevered like a stand-up comedian talking to a hostile house. He didn’t let the little girl’s lack of interest bother him, he just had to tell his story. Pretty soon he won her over, and she showed him her fancy pen.
Baby D walked out of the park VICTORIOUS carrying a new “Minnie,” and dragging the plastic Mickey weight behind him. When we got home he repeated his great balloon adventure story to Grandpa who gave him a standing ovation.
P.S. COMING SOON TO A WEBSITE NEAR YOU: Two brilliant questions from an equally brilliant reader, answered by three generations. http://advicefromfarfaraway.blogspot.com/
1. Why are pain, suffering, war and scandal, more popular subjects to talk about than love, charity, miracles, and the wonders of nature?
2. And to Baby Darling: Are you glad you came?
