Freak Magnet Dave

It's been a busy few days. I went to Hooterville to visit my mother Good Friday afternoon and got to spend some time playing with my niece's son who is just a few months older than Brynn. There were a lot of family members there to visit, which is usually the case. My mother was sitting up in a wheelchair, which is nice to see. She seemed a bit more alert, but still not communicating. We wheeled her down to the sunroom for a change of scenery, and to give her roommates a break from our noisy brood.


When I got home, The Squeeze was home from work and we decided to go out for dinner and a movie. There is a big bingo hall about a block or two from our house, and every time we drive down the road, one of us will jokingly ask the other, "Wanna go play bingo?" Needless to say, we've never been in. The Squeeze has never said 'yes' when I've asked, and I just laugh when he asks, because I know he doesn't want to go in there. I haven't been to a bingo hall in ages, and when I've gone with friends in the past we nearly get kicked out because we're having too much fun and disrupting the die-hards. While we ate dinner, he said, "Do you want to play bingo instead of going to a movie?" I looked at him in shock. He was serious. We drove to the bingo hall and he hopped out and found out what time the next games start. We had about 30 minutes or so, so we drove to the bank to get some cash, hit Timmie's for some coffee to enjoy while we played, and stopped by the house to pick up my dusty old dauber I recently unpacked.


It wasn't until we got up to the counter to buy our cards that I realized that I didn't know what I was doing. I just always bought the same thing as Weezie. We each bought a 3 strip, which is 9 cards. We figured we could handle that much better than the 5 strip which I've always called the Family Fun Pak. The place was packed, so it took a while to find two seats. Luckily we sat beside a nice couple with British accents and they told us what extra tickets we needed to get. I went up, emptied my wallet a bit more and came back with a stack of cards I divided between us. By the time the last game came about, due to the extras I bought, we each had 5 strips or 15 cards. The Squeeze said "I can't follow that many cards", so I took one of his extras. He had 4, I had 6. The ink was flying. The lady beside me had about 15 strips taped in two sheets, one above the other and she would flip back and forth as the numbers were called. I couldn't do that to save my life. Needless to say, we left there empty-handed, and empty-walleted. This sure isn't the 25 cents a card bingo you played at the carnival and used kernels of cow corn to mark the numbers. I think we spent around $60.00 in total between us.


Saturday I got to watch the kidlets in Hooterville while Weezie, my baby mama had a spa day with a couple of her friends for one of their birthdays. Aside from Brynn crying her eyes out and breaking my heart when she saw me, things went well. I guess she just figured out that her mother was leaving, and that's why she was freaking out. But not a minute after they left, all was well and we had a very fun day.

After watching the kids, I popped into the hospital to visit my mother before heading home. No changes to speak of.

The Squeeze and I were invited to Weezie's for Easter dinner, so we brought our baskets full of chocolate and stuffed bunnies for the kids. I don't know if they were more excited about the chocolate or the little wind-up bunnies that hopped all over the place. The kids were adorable in their little matching dresses and Brynn had her bunny ears on. Zoe broke hers earlier, so she was out of luck....or in luck, depending on whether or not she really wanted to wear them. We took the kids up to visit my mother for a bit. My mother was asleep when we got there, even though there were several family members sitting around talking, but she soon woke up. She seemed happy to see the girls. Her eyes kind of lit up and she tried to force a smile.


Earlier that day my brother called to let me know they were planning to have an Easter dinner picnic at the hospital. Sort of a potluck type of thing, just so they could be together with my parents. Unfortunately, with the prior commitment and only about 4 hours notice, I couldn't stay there for dinner. We got the girls back home and enjoyed dinner with Weezie, her sister, brother and mother. Those kids were hopped up on chocolate, and as the evening wore on, and Weezie's siblings left, the kids just kept bouncing off the walls. Between Weezie's back spasms, her mother's freshly replaced hip and my pinched sciatic nerve, it left The Squeeze as the only one able to run around with them, which he just loves to do. Pretty sad that only one of the four of us had a fully functioning body.


Monday morning I met up with Weezie after she dropped the girls off at daycare to cross the border and do a bit of shopping in Niagara Falls, NY. There was really nothing I needed, but she was on a mission to buy some clothes for the kids. She found all sorts of deals. The best of all was finding red velvet dresses for next Christmas on sale for $3.99. Ya, that's right. $3.99. However, when we got to the till, they rang up at $2.99. Unbelievable. She also bought some chocolate and munchies that were on sale, because there wasn't enough in the baskets, apparently. She was on a mission to buy some sort of cover for Chapstick that a friend of her's had for her nephew. We went to EVERY dollar store in the city, and there are a LOT of them. A whole lot of them. Nobody seemed to have what she was after. I told her she'd have to beat up her friend and steal her's.


I was exhausted and it wasn't even 2:00 yet. Perhaps because we hadn't eaten yet. After just one more dollar store, Wal-Mart (the evil empire) and K-Mart, we went for lunch. There was a woman in one of those "Mart" stores, not sure which one, who was quite a large woman. She had no neck, or rather...it was a very large neck. Remember Jabba the Hutt? It was kinda like that. Anyway...as we were leaving the parking lot, I saw her drive past us. We wound up behind her at the stop light. On her car was a bumper sticker that said "Abortion Stops My Beating Heart". I couldn't help but think....the extra 300 pounds you're carrying aren't doing your heart much good either. But then, I should talk.


The benefit to me of being there shopping was that I managed to pick up some big honkin' balls of yarn that were on sale for another project. I'm going to make a blanket for Zoe. I just need to finish the two berets I'm fighting with. Things aren't going well with one of those. I don't think the yarn has any give. I'm trying to do the brim in a 1x1 rib stitch, but it just turns into a big floppy mess that doesn't stretch or bounce back. Oh man, you know that scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin where the two guys are doing their "You know how I know you're gay?" bit? I think one of the answers could be "You knit berets." So I'll move on....


After dropping Weezie off, I drove to Hooterville Hospital. It was my parents' 57th anniversary. It's a bitter-sweet celebration this year. It was made even tougher by my father asking me to read my card to my mother, since he didn't have his glasses with him. I guess it wasn't enough that I was in tears at the store when we bought the card. I stayed pretty firm while reading it in front of both parents and a sister and brother who were also there. Then he asked me to read their cards to her as well. How I didn't fall apart is beyond me.


I am SUCH a wimp.