Grandma Sargie and Kylie before Sunday's dance recital.

May 13, 2013 – Monday morning

18 degrees/clear/calm/sunny

Pentoga Road

I just finished Skyping with Aunt Sue and Uncle Terry. They are visiting Aunt Sue’s son, Andy and his family, who live on the island nation of Mauritius, a small speck of land out in the Indian Ocean well off the coast of Madagascar. It looks to be a tropical island paradise.

Amazing how small the world has become in the past decade or two. I received an email from my third son, Matt, who is currently in China on business, then I saw and talked with Aunt Sue and Uncle Terry who are in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Years ago, both communications would have qualified as frontpage headlines. Now we take these things for granted.

Meanwhile, back to the UP…

If the tomatoes living in the Walls of Water for the past week survived last night, I’ll be super impressed. The mercury dipped far below the freezing mark during the nighttime hours. It appears that more normal temperatures are going to take precedence for the next week. I think everyone’s ready.

Mother’s Day is now a blur in our rearview mirror. We gave Brutus a super rawhide bone to keep him occupied for the day on Sunday morning, shut the doors, and left for Green Bay.

We figured this bone would last him a full day. It did.

The ride down was nice. We talked the whole way and the miles seemed to fly by.

We didn’t browse. In fact, we didn’t even go to the mall. A stop by Sam’s Club for black mulch and essential supplies was made, another to an outdoor store and nursery as Sargie was looking for artificial flowers to lay on the graves for Memorial Day, and finally, a drive-by at Harbor Freight to take advantage of some free goodies they were giving away with minimum purchases. In yesterday’s case, it was a pack of free screwdrivers and a 25’ tape measure. Tape measures and screwdrivers are like love… a person can’t have too many.

Flowers anyone?

We were in Octonto Falls shortly after 1 PM and met Shea, Nikki, and Kylie at the high school for Kylie’s dance recital. The auditorium was filled with anxious young mommies and daddies, all snapping pictures of their daughters who were dressed in everything from tutus to bumble bee outfits.

Kylie... second from the left

The recital lasted almost two hours as the seventy-plus dancers were featured in age groups. Awards, flowers, hugs, and kisses, followed and we were soon on our way back home.

Brutus passed his home-alone test with flying colors. Other than sleeping in Sargie’s chair most the day, he did well for his first extended stay by himself. I’m glad we didn’t have to tie him outside in the cold and wind. One of this summer’s projects is to build him a dog house… an exact replica of our home. It should be fun.

The pup did have more energy than good sense and we spent almost an hour playing fetch with a disk. When he runs, the hollow disk outlines his face and he looks like a sunflower with a pig’s face. Not a very pretty sunflower, but a funny one.

Sargie and I had a lazy evening last night. We played cards, watched a bit of television, and enjoyed what was left of Mother’s Day.

No fair! It's two against one. No wonder I always lose.

Sargie’s off today. I think she’s planning on touching up some places I may have missed in the bathroom and I have a new towel rack to hang. I think I’ll lay more mulch and spread chips in the garden then spend some time this afternoon working on the mower. No doubt, I’ll be cutting grass by week’s end. After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…