June 15 – “Dream of the century”

How’s this for a dream of the century candidate?  How about dream of the decade?  Would you believe, dream of last night?

The Astros were ahead 10-0 at the end of the second inning in California, so I went on to bed at 10 p.m.  Later that night I had a dream.  In my dream, I woke up (I know … weird number one, right?  And never a good thing to dream about.  You end up really tired from lack of sleep) and checked the app on my phone where I follow the play by play action when I can’t get to a television (MLB At Bat).  It informed me that the Astros had been overtaken by the A’s and were losing 13-12.  What?  How could that be?  The World Champs can’t blow a ten run lead. 

Suddenly I was jolted by a sound.  A familiar sound.  Distant at first, but then … Yep.  It was the actual app on my real phone alerting me that something had happened in the Astros game.  Groggily, I glanced at the clock.  Nearly midnight.  But now I couldn’t just let it pass.  I had to check and see how the ‘Stros could possibly have lost a 10 run lead.  And more importantly, how could I already know about it?  Cautiously I picked up my phone.  Sure enough the game report was showing.  But wait.  The score was not 13-12.  Not even 10-0.  But the Astros were still well out in front.  11-3 as I recall.  I watched a little more closely for a while, since I couldn’t get right back to sleep.  Didn’t want them to lose any more ground because of my lack of presence.  Finally, the young pitcher they just called up from the minors struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth.  Game over.  Final score 13-5.  At least it was the final if I was really awake …

Psalms 68:34 says, “Proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the skies.”

Father, dreams can be really fun things.  But I suppose you know all about that, since you … well, created them … and have used them to communicate for years.  But thanks for the just-for-fun ones, too.  Amen.

June 14 – “It’s gone”

I finally had some time yesterday to deal with the truck and its dead battery.  I jumped it using our new car.  It was the first time I had opened the hood on the car.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a plastic case cover over the positive side of the battery was open.  All looked fine, though, so I closed it up until I got the car into position and needed the juice.  It was pretty easy to access the battery, by the way.  Glad to hear that. 

Once the cables were all hooked up, the truck followed suit and started right up as well.  So I obediently let it run for a while.  All looked well, so I shut everything down and headed back inside.  And before I could get to the front door, I got a call to meet the AC guy at the church.  I let Chris know where I was headed, washed my hands and returned to the truck.  And the truck … wouldn’t start.  Dead as a doornail.  It’s gone.  I took the car for my meeting at the church, and later took the battery in to WalMart.  Still dead.  Didn’t even register on his meter.  We got a brand new battery for free.  But the guy was quick to inform me that the warranty on the new one just picks up where the other one left off.  That’s how they get you.  This one’s free but you will pay full price next time.  And the truck?  So far so good.  Needs some gas. 

OK, back to the AC guy for a moment.  The brand new compressor unit appeared to be on the fritz this past Sunday.  It just wasn’t doing the job.  We arrived around 8:30 and the temperature in the building was 78.  We set the AC to 71 and went about getting ready.  By 10 it had only cooled down to 75.  And by the time we left at 12:30, the temp was up to 79.  Not good at all.  It’s gone.  The guy did all his checks and now it seems we need a new pressure regulator valve.  Not part of the compressor, of course.  He ordered it, and assured me that they would try to get it installed before Friday.  Right.  It may be another warm day in Paradise.

Psalms 68:32-33 says, “Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord,

Selah to him who rides the ancient skies above, who thunders with mighty voice.”

Father, thank you for always being there for us when annoying things around us seem to scream … it’s gone.  Amen

June 13 – “The struggle”

I forced myself to get up really early yesterday.  I had agreed to struggle through the difficult task of taking our out of town friends … fishing.  Never an easy thing, but someone has to do it. 

We met up at the church since they were staying near Jamaica Beach.  I guess they had stayed up too late the night before chasing crabs around on the beach, because they were late.  I texted them to let them know I was waiting, and they were there in minutes.  Sadly, we couldn’t do any wade fishing.  The Gulf waters were raging, and the red flags were out warning of some pretty treacherous currents.  So we headed over to the little park on a Jamaica Beach main canal and settled in.  My first cast I caught a little sand trout.  Second one I caught a nice spec.  From that point on we fed the piggies.  Even used up most of the bucket full of shad a neighboring fisherman gave us when he left for the day.  Oh, Rachel did catch a spec and a croaker, so she managed to soundly defeat Corbin in the newlywed fishing tournament.  He reeled in his share of piggies, though.  Nice job, Corbin.  I’ll let your Dad know how well you did when he comes down next week. 

Our “official” catching up continued last night.  Corbin and Rachel came over for dinner.  Chris regaled them with a big pot of shrimp gumbo.  It also had stuff in it like chicken and crab and sausage, but in my mind, if there are shrimp in there, it’s shrimp gumbo.  Good stuff.  We did forget to pick up okra at the store though, so those tiny little slimy tidbits were missing.  But still, good stuff.  She also sautéed the specs we caught that morning.  Can’t beat that, either.

Good meal.  Good friends.  And the Astros even won out in California.  Good day.

Psalms 68:19 says, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”

Father, thank you for this chance we have had to get to know Rachel.  Bless the two of them in their marriage.  Amen.

June 12 – “The offspring”

We were invited out to dinner last night.  The son of some our oldest friends was in town with his new bride.  They wanted to get together and catch up some since we had to miss their wedding back in December.  They took us out to eat at Nate’s out by the church.  Come to find out, it was about a five minutes’ walk from the condo they have rented. 

On our way out there we passed by the Jamaica Beach fire station.  There in front was Lauren from church, so I waved, thinking she probably didn’t recognize us.  She did wave back, though.  Chris commented that “she’ll probably be calling you to see where we were going.”  And five minutes later I got a text …”What are y’all doing out here?  I waved.” 

It was great to hang out with Corbin and Rachel.  We heard about a lot of nursing stuff.  The two of them and Chris are all nurses.  I entertained myself quietly.  We did talk about each other’s histories as well.  It’s amazing how much info you can gather about each other over a good seafood dinner. 

So … catching up done.  Now it’s time to take them fishing.  Like … now …

Psalms 68:6 says, “God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”

Father thanks for friends who produce kids who become friends.  Amen.

June 11 – “GobblegobblehicCAW”

We had some highly unusual experiences with sounds this past week.  When we went fishing Zak and Micah were distracted by some unusual, high-pitched, agitated-sounding screams coming from the other side of the marsh.  They had no idea what that horrendous racket could be.  I assured them it was birds, but they didn’t believe me for some reason.  It wasn’t until Mr. Kenny explained that across the marsh lived an entire pride of peacocks that they shook their heads in utter amazement.  Hey, I looked that up.  A bunch of peacocks can be called a pride, a muster, or my personal favorite … an ostentation.  That last one really fits.  Ostentatious means flamboyant or showy.  I guess it refers to their looks, but if you have ever heard one screech, that’s pretty ostentatious as well. 

Now the second most obnoxious noise in my life this week came not from a bird or even a grandchild.  This one came from Chris’ phone.  She uses her timer when she is watering the grass, so it goes off every fifteen minutes or so.  And when it proclaims the time is up, it does so with the grace and elegance of a turkey with the hiccups.  Something along the lines of “GobblegobblehicCAW.”  Glorious.  I am seriously considering adding it to my repertoire of early morning wake-up wonderments.  Hmm.  Maybe I could try that one on Chris in the morning.

Psalms 68:5 says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”

Father, thank you for the wonder of sounds.  Another way you make your world a fascinating and fun place to live.  Amen.

June 10 – “Much wisdom. Little filter.”

You always have to be prepared to learn something monumental when you have youngsters running around your house.  Especially when those young ones are of the … oh, say … five and under variety.  Much wisdom.  Little to no filter.

Our middle-aged granddaughter Noa fits that category.  What?  Oh, “middle aged”?  That just means we have one older (Cailyn) and one younger (AnnaGrace).  It’s kind of difficult to glean Noa wisdom, because she never stops talking when given an ear to listen.  Who am I kidding?  She doesn’t need your ear to talk.  She had two of her own, and she’s happy to hone her conversational skills on herself.  I gave her one such listening ear and she didn’t disappoint.  I was relaxing in my chair, resting my eyelids, and chewing on a particularly soft piece of ice (my dentist said to stay away from the hard pieces).  Noa happened to be walking by at that particular moment.  After the initial, “DadDad, what is that noise?” that dragged me from my reverie, she explained for all of you who have been wondering,

“When you chew things with your eyes closed it means you are imagining something.  If you are not chewing, like this (closes her eyes and imitates chewing), it means you are sleeping.”

And she’s quite the little Mommy as well.  They had been here for a while.  Her Mom had just returned to pick her up, so I went back to the bedroom where she had been playing with her little brother to let her know her ride had arrived.  Here’s what I was met with:

“It’s OK, DadDad.  I’ll stay in here with Ezra and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble.  You can go say hi to Mommy if you want.”

Well, thanks for that.  Believe I will.

Psalms 68:4 says, “Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds — his name is the Lord — and rejoice before him.”

Father, thank you for those special little ones in my life who teach me something every time we are together.  Amen.

June 9 – “The Extravaganza”

OK.  I promised a fishing report to close out the news of Zakary’s birthday fishing bash.  Josh, Zak, Cousin Micah and I left the house around 6 and made our way to the home of our illustrious fishing guide, Mr. Kenny.  We had to wait a few minutes because he is a fire fighter and was just coming off duty.  Once he got changed and we made our way over to the water where Mr. Kenny did some casting for bait.  That accomplished, he launched the boat and we headed into the Bay for our fishing adventure. 

Well, not exactly yet.  We stopped at the Causeway bait camp for some live shrimp, and horror of horrors … they were all out.  Not to be deterred, Mr. Kenny had a back-up plan.  We headed over to the Yacht Basin, and sure enough, their bait shop was well stocked.  Soon, so were we and finally on our way to the Jetties, a prime fishing spot around Galveston.  I remember (vaguely) the last time I was there.  I was but a child and I was with my Dad.  We had a pretty good catch of specs and mackerel.  All of a sudden a shark swept by the boat and took a huge hunk out of our stringer (which in those olden days hung off the side of the boat to keep the catch fresh).  Dad took a look at it and immediately lamented the fact that the shark had been so discerning in his selection.  He bit only the specs and left the mackerel.  On the next cast my Dad caught a shark.  Probably not the same on, mind you, but it represented the species.  And the creature was none too happy when Dad finally returned it to the water.  Some of Dad’s frustrations were - how shall I say? – lessened, however. 

So why the shark story?  Glad you asked.  See, we caught some fish out there.  Josh caught a spec that we are “absolutely positive” was under the limit, because it was accidentally returned to the deep just before it could be measured.  A small mangrove snapper grabbed one line.  We pulled in two nice sized sheepheads.  But the absolute highlight of the trip was the shark catching.  All five of us managed to snag a shark, but Josh was able to record the boys’ catch on his camera.  Their reactions were nothing short of priceless and as they struggled to land their three or four foot-long prey.  And then they faced the trauma of holding the critter so Dad could get a picture.  Zak did pretty well.  Micah’s shark was almost half his size, so he was a bit more skittish.  Josh got the photos of proof, though, and the sharks were returned to terrorize for another day.  Zak’s comment after his successful shark-catching ordeal ended?  “OK.  I’m ready to go home now.”  His day was made.

Oh, wait.  On our way back home we had one more exciting occurrence.  We were boarded by the Coast Guard.  No we weren’t smuggling anything, although they did ask if we had any weapons on board.  I guess a fillet knife doesn’t count as a weapon.  Actually it was a random equipment check.  And Mr. Kenny’s boat passed with flying colors.  The Coast Guard guys were great.  One was in training, so he was pretty nervous, but they let us take their picture with the boys before they left.  And so the “Detainment” ended in a positive way.

Apparently Mr. Kenny was having so much fun with us, he offered to take us out again in the early evening.  This time he had a little more trouble finding bait with his cast net, but he managed to get enough for us to make one final stop for the day at a spot near his house.  The target this time was red fish.  They didn’t disappoint us.  I don’t think Josh caught anything on this leg of the journey, but both boys had their hands full with a few huge hardhead catfish.  Zak landed a big ladyfish that leapt from the water several times, giving him quite a thrill.  And finally, Zak hooked on to a nice red fish.  The creature wasn’t going to give in without a fight, though.  It dragged Zak in a circle around the entire boat before finally tiring enough for us to net him.  It was the only keeper of the evening. 

I would have to say that the Zak Birthday Fishing Extravaganza was a rousing success.  Mr. Kenny even gave us a bag of fillets when he heard we were planning a fish fry today.  Hmm.  Maybe it’s time Zak learned the finer points of a Galveston fish fry.  Then I could hand off that responsibility to the younger generation.  That’s what us old dudes are supposed to do, isn’t it?

Psalms 68:3 says, “But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.”

Father, thank you for the experience yesterday.  I’m pretty sure it will be a day Zak and Micah will remember for a long time.  Amen.