aMusing Monday’s: Monkey Whisperer

I hesitated to write this entry because I have been told never write about politics, religion or grandkids.  Feel free to pass on this week’s story, if you would like.  I just had to blog about their visit……

They looked like two rag dolls when they crawled out of the back seat.  They’d been riding for two days and it showed.  They looked at me, raised a hand, walked to their bedroom and fell out on the bed.  They were hot, sweaty, and hungry.  I never got a hug from those grandbabies (7 and 8 years old) until they got a second wind.  Then all heck broke loose.  Lots of hugs, lots of kisses and one very important question,  where is Zooie, aka Lucy?  It almost broke their little hearts when I told of her passing.  GK1 loved that dog more than he loved people and that included me.  They would spend hours together just sitting on the couch.  It was tough for both him and me.

I wanted to take them Geo Caching but the forest was closed due to extreme fire danger, so I did the next best thing.  I wrote a story about a ghost knight, their aunt Cait wrote riddles to find the caches; Poppy and I hid stuff all over the neighborhood before they got here.

The knight was on a quest when something got him.  He asked the boys if they would complete his quest.  “Well, heck yeah!” they said.  I gave them a GPS and their first clue. I started up the old Speed Buggy (my tricked out golf cart) and turned them loose.  They loved following the coordinates to each destination.  They also loved the clues more than the treasures they were finding. In the end, they found a bag of army men to help in their quest, a full set of armor, a bow and arrow and a small but semi deadly –not really–sword.   They chatted with a trusty steed and found their reward of a treasure chest filled with nuggets of gold (chocolates) along with 20 crumpled up one dollar bills. My reward? Smiles from ear to ear!  Poppy enjoyed a few grins too.

When the quest was all said and done, I let each one of them do a little driving.  They did well with a relatively small learning curve.  The one problem they both had was turning the corners at a speed that would not leave a passenger or two along the road side.  We drove all day.  They were well on their way to becoming experts.  In fact, Gk1 was so comfortable with his driving skills he sit back relaxed and drove with only ONE hand.  This did not go unnoticed by Gk2.  Gk2 looked at me and asked,  “Doesn’t he look cool?”     He decided that brother was so good,  he could just do all the driving. GK2 had more important skills to work on – like turning this rolling cart into a jungle gym! Good lord, the little curtain climber was walking all over the sides and back of the buggy, all the while, his brother was keeping a steady pace.  Gk2 was so comfortable he was hanging off the edge with one hand. “Look MoMo, one hand!”  He started to get on the roof to fly.  I said no.  He wanted to walk on the bumper in the front of the cart.  I asked him what would happen if he fell off while we were rolling.  He thought for a minute and said, “hmm, I guess I would become a speed bump.”  That tickled me.  We rode until the sun started going down then headed home.  We were just about ready to turn the corner when all of a sudden Gk1’s driving foot got a little too heavy.  I heard a thud, gravel and an aaawwh!. I turned around just in time to see Gk2 in the gravel road spinning like a top on his belly.  Arms were stretched out far, like a cat heading for water and feet were flailing in the air… He spun twice.  I yelled stop.  He gets up without a tear.  I brought no attention to his scraps for fear of an all out melt down.  Bath time would reveal the boo boos and soap bubbles would take care of the rest.  After a few minutes of trying to keep his manhood intact, he crawls into the buggy.  We get to the driveway and he looks at me to say with a little quivering lip,  “Hey MoMo,  I have been told I am the Monkey Whisperer.”… The cart stopped at these words.  There was a few seconds of silence, then we all roared with laughter all the way up the driveway.  Just think, this was only day one.