A Little Thing Called "Attitude"

My darling granddaughter is the fifth iteration I've known in my life of a female template the likes of which the world could use more of. Sorry to dangle my participle out there like that, but this is going to be one of those.

She's way smart, fiercely loyal, totally committed to the task at hand, and waaaay quick on her feet physically and mentally. With a default gait of 'scamper', (her forebears not quite so much any more) she's just as quick and light with her wit as on her feet.

Case in point: B's always relegated to the MIC seat in the Suburban (Most Important Cargo). While the rest of us fasten our "meatbelts" she applies her "sweetbelt."

A couple days ago I was trucking the grandkids about, as often, using our time together to school them in the finer points of classic rock 'n roll - ("Does it have to be so LOUD, Gramps?! ") - when I noticed that the sound from the rear of the vehicle changed periodically. I was pretty sure I detected some furtive movements from the MIC seat concurrent with the forbidden messing with my decibels.

What are you doing back there, young miss?! I'll show you, Gramps.

We arrive, I clamber into the back. She points out an array of controls on the back of the arm bolster separating the front seats. "See this button? When I push it in, like this, I don't have to listen, it turns the music off back here. When I push it again, it turns the music back on."

She goes through the process again, slowly, as if instructing a painfully slow classmate who's having trouble tying his shoes.

She turns to me, pointedly catches my gaze, looks deep into my soul and carefully enunciates "Get it now?"

. .. and a time to refrain from . . .

Turns out that Tiger "the Wimp" Woods had some pretty good logic as to why he waited so long to get back out on the links. The reason? It takes time for a knee to recover. And the Wimp had only some minor snipping and tucking and a little suction going on, not a complete replacement like your mostly-truly, the Patella Fella.

Sure sure, I was warned repeatedly, and you don't have to guess more than once by whom, but my surgeon, he said, "If you feel like you're ready, go on ahead." Of course a surgeon is only happy when he's wearing green and is up to his elbows in your blood. He doesn't know from rehab.

So at least once a week I've been out for 18 holes, and Surprise! each time it's taken me two or three days for the swelling and the pain to ebb to the point where I can be my charming, scintillating self.

Friday may have been the one. It's Wednesday and I'm still swoled and hurtful. Told the Knuckleheads to take me out of the rotation until I get this foot/knee thing rehabbed properlike, or learn to swing from one leg, flamingo like.

Pool Maintenance

Note To Self:

If the pool sweep quits moving, and you can't see anything blocking his gullet, but when you poke your finger in there it feels all squishy and waterballoonish, next time don't keep poking at it until it bursts.

And when you disassemble your Nemo and remove the effluvia of what turns out to have been most of a family, do not run trumpeting your discovery to whomever commands the kitchen, or your next meal could be delayed.

Boy howdy.