The Visit

The visit is happening in two days. It is interesting that as times go by you forget about all the things that bothered you the last time you got together and then as the visit gets closer you remember those things that drove you nuts. I'm now looking forward to next Sunday, the day she returns to Arizona. I'm still going to have a great time and am looking forward to a lot of laughs and compainoship but I am also looking forward to my private time again. From Wednesday through Saturday I will try to check in to let everyone know how the visit is going.

I was planning a 4th of July barbecue at Mom's house with Mom, Laura, and myself. Was going to grill some hot dogs but then I remembered from her last visit here in 2001 that the only kind of hot dogs she likes are the expensive ones you buy in movie theatres! OK, so maybe I can take the barbecue to the lobby of the local theater, borrow some of their hot dogs, and barbecue them in the lobby. Or maybe I will just do hambugers instead.

If the hot dog thing wasn't bad enough in a recent call with her she said it would be fun to go roller skating. The only time I roller skated it scared me emotionally for life. I actually wrote about it on my blog at the beginning but just to refresh everyone's memory here is my story about the only time I roller skated:

In High School I was neither a nerd or popular. I just didn't exist. Overshadowed by some great siblings. Sis was prom queen. Bro was all state in three sports. I won a Howdy Doody look alike contest. Neither was I exactly a klutz. Just wrong place, wrong time derailed my athletic career. Our school had a student body of 2,500 with 570 in my class. The last player on our team would be a starter at many other schools. I was that last player. So I wasn't a klutz. We were visiting our aunt and her family in Glendale, California between my junior and senior years in high school. My sister and my cousin, Sandy, took me roller skating. I'd never been on roller skates before. I had been working out to get in shape for football and hadn't bought new clothes yet so my pants didn't exactly fit. It was at a roller skating rink in Pasadena, California. My sis and Sandy convinced me that if I went out to the middle of the rink where everyone was skating in a circle to the music they would hold on to me. Should have known better than to trust them. The music started sis was on one side holding on to my arm, Sandy on the other side, holding on to my other arm. My pants kept slipping so I kept holding on to them. Sandy and sis got to laughing and let go of me. I went flying, my pants went down, tidy whities exposed, I hit the railing and did a pretty good somersault over the railing into the concession stand. I was so embarassed. We had a real hard time in the emergency room telling the doctor how my aunt broke a blood vessel in her eye laughing. I didn't get hurt physically but the emotional damage was severe.

Do you think I want to try roller skating again? Oh, well if everyone reads in the newspaper about a guy getting arrested for bringing a grill to the lobby of a theatre or being taken to the hospital in his underwear after being foolish enough to try skating again, you will know it is me.