11:15 Sunday night.  Stars are out, the upside down question mark lights the sky,  there are flashes of lightning.  

Dogs need a walk, Murray comes up to me at the computer, Buddy is eating her food.  I get up put him in the guest bathroom with his food, but he probably won't eat it.  And then I will take them for a short walk.  It's a little cool out, but it's not raining, it's cloudy with stars, no moon yet and miraculously no wind...

A beautiful Sunday, had to get up at 7:30 to walk the dogs before waking up Micah and Howie to get ready to go to basketball camp.  Woke them up around 8:20.  They dragged themselves out of bed, I think Howie was excited for camp. Excited to meet new kids.  Micah has been just jumping from one friend to another.  Now onto basketball camp with Ben and I'm sure he will make some new friends too.  I had everything packed ready to go, but I when I got home from meeting Laura at the Conoco I saw their water bottles which I left on the counter.  Oh well.  I did remember to give them money.

Howie and Micah both gave grandpa hugs goodbye before they left.

Back at the house, I took a shower, while waiting for Tim to pick up Jack.  He arrived while I was in the shower.  I took a quick one and came out - they were sitting in the living room with Dad.  We talked for a little while, then my phone rang, it was Dan.  Dan and I made plans to meet at the softball game and then hang out and fish.  So that opened up my day to stay at home and watch the Mets game with Dad.  

I get up and look for the dogs, Murray is laying down on her living room bed, I see one of our ant traps all chewed up on the living room rug.  Hopefully Buddy won't get sick from that, it doesn't look like he really made a dent in it.  I unlock Buddy from the bathroom and let him eat Murray's food.  He's hungry and it's not bad for him, it just annoys Murray I would imagine.

Tomorrow I will ask the vet about it when I take Murray in to get her eyes checked out.

Here's Buddy, done eating, now wandering onto the porch which I opened when I got home.

Eventually I will walk them, but not yet.

After Tim and Jack left, I made myself a couple of over easy eggs while Dad put on his shoes.  Then we went for a walk. We walked down and up the lower bench, and then around to the cul de sac by Bucks T-4.   Buddy made a bee-line for where Howie had a pooh attack and had to go right then!  So I told him to just go and he did.  Dad a had tissue so it was all good.  That was yesterday, and today Buddy was really interested in smelling the spot and trying to eat it.  I think I got him away from it.  Funny, I told Dad I didn't need to bury it, some animal would come and eat it.  And it was on an empty lot.  

So we did the walk around the far park and then back up to our house.  About a mile, maybe a mile and a half, but a nice walk, Dad needs to go for at least a short walk everyday.  He even says it makes him feel better to walk. Then we got home and put the Mets game on.  The Mets had jumped to a 1-0 lead over the Reds.  We sat down in the t.v. room and watched the game. I tried calling Jackie, Dad encouraged me to call her.  This time there was no answer.  I checked her blog and surprisingly there was a new blog.  I had actually read the her new e-mails while I was getting Micah and Howie ready to leave, then read her and Andrew and Sawyer's new entries after getting back from dropping off the boys, I was happily surprised to see a new entry posted at 9:55 am - She had an amazing day spent in Kibera mostly visiting this mom she recruited to be involved in the Our Kids Foundation.

At about noon the phone rang, I looked at the number on the phone, it was Jackie.  I said hello and then just called her right back.  I was surprised, I had somewhat given up on talking to her.  She's back in civilization, able to read my blogs, and power up her phone.  We talked like we always do.  It's a wonderful thing to still be in love after 23 years.  The trip continues to be amazing.  She told me about her day in Kibera and the Safari and her worries, and thoughts about everything, Andrew, Kenya, Kibera, Mariam, Evans.  I talked about the boys and grandpa and life in Big Sky, she read most of the blog so she was pretty up to date. I know at one point we said , no reason to talk forever, let's just say goodbye and then talked for at least another 10 minutes.  I talked to Andrew who told me about videoing a monkey who was looking right at him and then started looking away from him as he started jerking off.  He sounded good, looking forward to the Italian Beach Resort, Midera? where I told him that I bet all the girls would be topless.  I was laughing, He was saying, that's what we're hoping.   

Back to the Mets game after saying goodbye to Jackie.  The Mets game was a long one, they were winning at one point 7-0 and somehow held onto win 9-7 after  2 back to back solo home runs put them ahead 9 -3.  The apple went up for the first one, but needed more time to rejuvenate itself to get up the second time.  The announcers were having fun with that one as the home run apple finally went up again after the inning was over.  I was trying to start lunch inbetween innings, but we didn't eat lunch until the game was over, which wasn't until 2:30.  I needed to be at the softball field to help "manage" the Baked Moose game which started at 3.  But I had to go at Dad's speed, so we didn't get there until just after the game started, which was fine.  We scored 4 runs in the top of the first and then Dan went on the mound and held the Huckers to only 1 run.  4-1 after one, and then we continued to lead the entire game until they took the lead 12-11 in the bottom of the 6th.  In the top of the 7th we had the bases loaded with no outs and blew it, not scoring any runs and losing the game.  Dan was a bit disappointed.  The Huckers are undefeated and we had them beat.  

After the game Dan came over to the house after dropping his work car at his co-workers.  The plan was to go fishing. We got to the house, hung out for a little bit, had a beer, then changed into fishing gear and set up the rods.  As soon as we were all rigged up, the wind began to howl, cool and strong, blowing like crazy, we hung outside by the open tailgate of my landcruiser just chatting away, until the rain started to come in as well, and the wind. and more wind.  We were watching t.v. - but I kept getting up to check on the storm, and the sky.  I went out onto the back porch to look at the storm and there was my neighbor Chris trying to hold her trampoline back from flying away - it was wedged into the dead choke cherry tree on our lawn.  She obviously needed help.  I yelled to Dan that we needed to help Chris, her trampoline was trying to fly away. We went outside and we helped hold down the trampoline.  The already dead choke cherry tree was blocking it, but the wind was howling and strong and we didn't think it was a good idea to just leave it there.  We noticed that a lot of it was bent or broken off, and after some discussion decided we needed to take it apart to make sure it didn't blow away further and ram into someone's house. It was a little crazy,  I was actually a but out of breath from the excitement, and feeling a bit overwhelmed but Dr. Dan had everything under control.  One of us was always holdng it down, I went to get straps.  When I got back we analyzed what had to be done to secure it.  I had lots of thoughts swirling around my head, but mostly just wanting to help Chris deal with it and if we really wanted to be safe about it, it meant taking it apart.  It did enter my mind to just leave it be, but the wind definitely continued to howl and that would have been taking quite a chance.  It took us about 20 minutes to take the trampoline apart which mostly meant undoing all the springs that held the trampoline together, then removing all the uneven walls, so we could flip it over and stand it up.  We then moved it back to where it was putting all the loose pieces, the springs and the bars in a box under their play structure.

While the storm still raged we decided to make some dinner, Dan just completely took over the kitchen and cooked up an amazing stir fry.  I made rice and kept getting distracted by the sky. Dad was watching the Cubs vs. Cardinals game, and came out asking me what the last name of the Reds player named Micah who was a pitcher and a pinch hitter.  I couldn't remember his last name either, my dad gets obsessed sometimes with remembering things like that, a name of someone he just heard about, or someone from his past.  Their was someone he was telling me about the other day, a guy back in Hewlett who had a really big New York Times Delivery route that he used to work, they would help each other out with newspapers if one guy had too many  or one of them was short, but he couldn't remember his name and it bothered him, but it's up there in his head and one day it might pop out. So I googled Red Roster 2009 and found out his name was Micah Owings.  So I went in to tell, Dad, Micah Owings, not Winnings, but Owings and I bet he will remember it now.  

Then I came back out and went to the porch, a rainbow was slowly forming.  It was actually raining in front of our house, pouring on the driveway, but there was no rain to the far left of the house and no rain to the far right of the house and the sun was shining and you could see the sheets of rain so clearly. Slowly the rainbow turned into a full rainbow and then into a super clear double rainbow.  I went and got Dad out of the t.v. room and showed him the rainbows through the picture window.  "So there is a rainbow, I've seen rainbows here before."  We looked at it together. I put my arm around him, "That is an amazing double rainbow."  I felt unbelievabley blessed at that moment standing with him, my hand rubbing his back looking out at the awesome double rainbow over Ramshorn Peak.  Somehow Dan and Dad got into a side discussion about gold, Dan talking about the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow and Stan talking about how the price of gold is right now.  "How do you sell a bag of gold?" I asked my Dad.  "At a coin dealer."  

"You better know he's reputable," I said, thinking that a bag of gold coins is not that liquid...

The rain continued, I ran outside to my truck to grab my camera out of my fishing vest and took a couple of pictures as did Dan.  I will have to e-mail them to him.  We sat outside for awhile trying to stay covered by the rain, watching the lightning show, the rainbows and the rain.  The we came back in.  Dan finished dinner and I set the table laughing and apologizing for being so distracted by the storm.

Dinner was delicious and by the time we were done with dinner it was time to walk down to the river and try our hands at fishing.  The sky still looked a bit ominous, but stayed calm enough for a little while. We fished my usual beginning spot, but neither of us had any luck.  I changed from a caddis to a parachute adams, had one or two splashes, but no fish made it onto my line.  Then the wind started up again - the sky looked like 2 storms were about to converge on us.  So we headed back to the house.  Murray was with us and driving Dan crazy as we hiked back, because she insisted in walking inbetween us with me leading and she was walking to slow for Dan.  She was continuously herding us.  Good Ol' Murray.  At one point I think Dad said she was absolutely unbelievable, and I laughed.  He said he meant it as a compliment, and I said, that's why I was laughing.

Back at the house we unrigged. put everything into the truck, came into the house to see Dad and then we went to the Conoco to rent a movie.   For some reason on the way to the car I said, "No worries."  Dan and I started talking about having no worries, and I said how I felt worrying was a waste of time,  My Dad spends a lot of time being a worrier and I don't mean warrior, and what good does it do.  You need to act or just not worry.  Dan was saying right now with this economy we have a lot of people worrying, but not willing to do anything about it.  Then I told him about this customer that when he changed his order, I said to him, "No worries," and he said, "No worries doesn't work for me.  You have to worry about yourself, no one's going to watch your back for you."  A few customers later I notice an envelope just sitting on the counter. It's one of those bank envelopes and it has money in it, a few twenties and the rest smaller bills.  I look around to see if I can remember who might have left it there.  I actually see that No No Worry guy eating in the dining room, but it never occurred to me that it could have been his so I never asked him.  It probably was his.  It's still sitting on my desk, waiting to be dealt with.

At the Conoco Dan was looking for some documentary about Iraq, but it was already out so we ended up with Valkery and a pint of Ben &  Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.  At the Conoco I couldn't resist a picture of Lone Peak due west of the earlier rainbows which were due east of the house.  Then it was down to Dan's house for dessert and a movie. Nothing like a movie about Hitler to cheer you up, but actually it was an uplifting movie about people trying to do the right thing during extremely difficult and dangerous times.

I think I'll walk the dogs now.  Hmmm now I hear coyotes?  maybe we won't go out.  All the animals are asleep, Ziggy on a kitchen chair, Murray on her bed, uh oh, Buddy's getting up because he hears the animal noise - it actually sounds more like horses braying, wonder why... it actually sounds like dogs yipping down below, the moon is rising over the mountains, 3/4 moon, dogs barking at the moon.  If I go out I'll put Buddy on a leash.  Sounds like Murray's stirring, Ziggy is licking himself.

Finally, I take the garbage out, Buddy comes outside with me, but stays on the top of the driveway as I roll the pail down.  When we get back into the house, Buddy goes onto the back porch and starts growling, this low gruff growl.  When I go out onto the porch with him he starts barking.  I don't know what he's barking at.  I'm looking for some big animal down below or in our yard - he's looking towards Chris's house, but I don't see anything.  The moon does light things up a bit, but I can't see any moving shadows.  The barking wakes up Murray who is now eating what is left of her food.  I should probably give her some more, and I should probably go to bed, I have a knee appointment in Bozeman at 9 am and it's already after 1.