I guess this is what you get when Conrad arrives in a foreign country, and they tell him to write home and tell his parents that he’s OK.
Uh…OK
Sexy Gringo
Weston is nearing the end of his mission in Peru. I asked if he was excited to come home, and he said, “No.”
I told him that hurt my feelings a little.
He said, “Papa, when I walk down the street, girls yell, ‘Hey, sexy gringo!'”
…so I said, “Well, I can yell ‘Hey, sexy gringo!’ when you walk down the street here?”
So, the question is, when we pick him up from the airport, do we make a banner that says, “Welcome home, sexy gringo!”
That’s so cocky!
I spent a lot of time one summer sort of figuring out how web servers worked (largely thanks to my brother, brother-in-law, and uncle-in-law). I bought my first domain, rwhm.net, because it was the only domain of my initials that was available. I sort of learned Flash and created my first website. After that, I went hog wild and bought domains for every kind of website I could think of. It became an addiction that I continue to fight. I remember telling Claire that I wouldn’t buy any more.
It was probably the next day that I asked Claire if I could buy just one more domain. She looked disappointed at my lack of resolve and asked, “Don’t you have enough? What is this one for?” I explained that it was for a family blog, and that the domain was richandbeautiful.org. She gave a barely perceptible smile and said, “Well, I think that’s OK.”
My brother was telling one of his friends about the name, and she replied, “Wow, that is so cocky!” He tried to explain that it was my name, NOT my socioeconomic status, and, to avoid confusion, I added a tagline to the header: “I’m Rich. She’s beautiful.” (Please note that Rich is capitalized because it’s my name, NOT my socioeconomic status.)
At one point, we were posting regularly and were pretty high on search results for “rich and beautiful.” The results were a lot of dating sites for people who want to meet rich people…and our family blog. Now, it’s only the dating sites to meet rich people.
Dogs and Children Napping
Rich: Dognapping is the worst crime. If someone took my dog, I would lose it.
Claire: So, actually, I think kidnapping is worse.
Hate is a strong word.
“I don’t know what your music is. You like all types of music, but you also hate all types of music.”
Weston, talking about my taste in music.
The Grand Seduction
I don’t remember how we found it, but Claire and I wound up watching the movie The Grand Seduction. It’s a movie about a small fishing village that is trying to convince a young doctor to live there. We thought it was fun, and that it was a movie our parents might like.
I mentioned the name of the movie to my mom, and she said, “You know, Richard, I don’t really enjoy movies like that.”
Not a Pregnancy Test
I got an alert saying I had been in close proximity to someone with COVID, so I went to Walgreens to buy one of their rapid tests. I didn’t know you could get a home test, so I started talking to the Walgreens guy.
Rich: “So, these give you a quick result—like a pregnancy test?”
Walgreens Guy: “No, you don’t pee on it. You stick it up your nose.”
Rich (thinking the guy wanted to joke around, pretends to misunderstand): “YOU PEE ON IT! THEN STICK IT UP YOUR NOSE?!?”
Walgreens Guy (a little irritated): “No! I said you don’t pee on it!”
Got it.
COVID 1957
Am I the only one seeing little covids everywhere I look? This was the tile in our very outdated bathroom, so I sent it to Oma and Opa with the caption “COVID-19”. They replied, “COVID-1957.” (The house was built in 1957.) Solid pun, Opa.
Back to Surgery Week
Nonessential surgeries have been backed up due to COVID-19, so Claire was waiting for over two months. Maybe an hour after I brought her home from the hospital, Weston was complaining that his side hurt. His doctor uncle came by to see Claire and to drop off all of his non-vegan food. He looked at Weston and said that we should probably take him to the ER. When the ER doctor poked Weston’s right side, Weston screamed and folded in half. The doctor looked at me with a mischievous smile and kept poking Weston’s appendix. Weston’s reaction tapered off, and, eventually the doctor got bored and said, “Yeah, now you know it’s coming.” They took him in for an ultrasound, and asked if I wanted to go with them. I said that I wanted to see if it was a boy or a girl.
Luckily, the surgery went well. His surgeon was great. One of the more entertaining parts was hearing him describe when Weston can play basketball again. He said, after a week, he could bounce the ball a little and do some spinny things.
After a week (and five months of COVID shutdown) he insists he’s ready to go back to school.
Lawn Moores
The boys wanted to earn some extra cash to support their basketball habit. (We still don’t know if it should be one word or two.)
