soups on the dike and scooter stories

i'm sitting in my new fall jammies.  what of it?? 

it was a lumpelawmen day.  what i mean to say it was very busy at work.  tours and new members coming out my ears.  but that's a good kind of busy.

yesterday dad was like, if it's nice tomorrow we should go to the dike. and today which was tomorrow yesterday, if you know what i mean, was one of the only non-rainy days of the week, so yah.  i suggested we have a picnic and mom who at first balked later warmed up to the idea especially when i suggested thermos soup and grilled cheese.  she made a yummy thai-esque soup with chicken and squash and much much more (she made us guess all the ingredients.  the tricky one was turnip).  when i got home from work after giving my life's blood to put gas in sahib, dad had already left.  unbeknownst to me plans had grown and evolved while i was at work.  duncan and jenny were joining us and we were meeting at the blundell entrance to the dike.

as i was getting out of the car a lady passing by commented "i love your purse!" "thanks!" i said knowing it to be a superior fun purse.  mom, coming around the car said "did she just compliment you on your purse?"  "ya," i replied smugly tousling a few tassles of said admired purse. "what's so special about your purse?" asked mom coming up to inspect it.  "you're just jealous." i accused, continuing in my smugness.  she laughed.  

the blundell entrance has a bit of a walk down a path to get to the dike and mom patiently went at my slow trundle pace.  a jogger ran past us.  "show off," said mom under her breath.  "you are having some jealousy issues today," i accused and she laughed again.  when we finally made it to the dike there was duncan, jenny and dad all waving to us from a picnic table.  so we joined them. 

jenny had a pretty polyester flower table cloth all set up.  it was a gorgeous evening.  sumptuous in light and colour.  there were huge honking flocks of snow geese perpetually over head and out on the shore.  we had a lovely picnic and it seemed to really please people when they saw us.  we got so many comments and 2 ladies stopped and insisted on taking our photo for us.  

dad was charming everyone and had a different comment for each passer by.  my favourite was posed to a lady with a cute pixie cut.  she was walking two little dogs and dad's ice breaker was "which one looks like you?" she laughed quite a bit and in cute accent of some sort she point out the one with hair the same colour as hers.

we got cold when the sun started setting and that got us packing up to leave.  dad was to head down the dike to francis and then go down francis.  this was the weak point in the plan last time and this time was no different.  also he refused to turn his light on because he feared it would wear out the battery.  but...he swore he knew where to go because he would see picnic tables at francis.... 

mom and i parted ways with duncan and jenny at our cars after duncan examined the back of my car swearing he thought we could get dad's scooter in it.  we stopped at the produce stand on blundell and no 1 road so mom could get some fruit.  she forgot her wallet so i gave her my card and got a cheese loaf out of the deal.  not bad.  on the way home we saw 2 cool things.  the first was mom's first elementary school--grauer.  the second was a huge full harvest moon hanging low and gorgeous in the sky, so perfect i almost didn't believe she was real.  she emerged out of a cloud bank and revealed herself to us as we drove.

meanwhile dad did not exit on francis because he is a bad boy.  he is also a bad boy because he banged his knee on a bench he was passing.  i got a call from him when he was on williams and no 4 road.  that's not too far from home, but he turned the wrong way towards steveston hwy instead of francis and as i was trying to tell him to turn around a guy in a truck stopped to help him and dad stopped listening to me.  a little frustrating because the guy in the truck didn't know where we live and i do  but none the less i got his attention and told him to go down no 4 rd to francis and turn left and he would find ash.  ash is the street that dad knows.  he was asking the guy about ash.  well apparently the guy directed dad down williams towards ash because the next time he called me he was on ash north of our house, in the neighbourhood i used to do my paper route in.  that ash ends at the park by our house but since he's on scooter, he could ride his scooter through the park and home. it was pitch black by now and he couldn't find his light to turn it on.  i got up and looked for him out the window and saw him shoot out from the trees and waved to him.  apparently this caused him to wind up in the mud on the side of the path and get stuck.  lol  you can't make this stuff up.  i was already undressed in bed, so i started putting my clothes on and searching my phone for norm's number so he and billy could come help get him out of the mud, but two guys in the park pushed him out and he made it home at last.

mom said he got a superficial wound on his knee but that it was sore from the whack.  doug clarke lives to adventure another day.  this blog is becoming the chronicles of doug clarke's adventures.