Friday with the Monkeys

Warren had to work on Friday, so I spent the day with the monkeys. By noon they were driving me crazy with their Nintendo DS wars, so I asked if they wanted to go to the Blue Playground. We hardly ever go to the Blue Playground anymore, so they excitedly said yes.

There were a lot of kids enjoying the warm weather, but no one that we knew. That didn't stop the monkeys from making friends. This kid, Jesse (not his real name), quickly joined in their game of tag. As I was lapping the playground (I thought I'd get a modicum of exercise while we were there), I eavesdropped on the conversation they were having. Jesse, who was clearly missing several teeth, opened with, "How many teeth have you lost?"


From there they moved on to bigger and better topics. Yes, you guessed it. "What did you get for Christmas?" Jesse must have been a really good boy because Santa brought him a PlayStation 3, an XBOX 360, and a Wii. I think Satchel caught on that Jesse was exaggerating, but he played along. I followed them up the hill to check out the train, then we went back down to climb on a tree that was inexplicably hacked down. Jesse was very impressed with the monkeys' climbing skills. "You're a real dare devil!" he said as Satchel easily scaled the full length of trunk.

Finally, I heard Satchel ask Jesse if he knew his phone number. He did. Then Satchel said, "Give it to my mom so she can put it in her phone. Then we'll call you for a playdate."

After Jesse left, we decided to head over to Burke's. Liz & Vanessa gave the kids a gift certificate that they were hot to cash in. We spent about an hour investigating all of the kids' books, then the monkeys discovered the small stash of toys. While they played, I browsed around a bit.

As we were driving home, Satchel reminded me that I said we could go to the coffee shop. (I was trying to convince them to walk to Otherlands from the Blue Playground.) Really wanting a caffeine fix, I agreed to pull over. Since we hardly ever go to the Blue Playground, we hardly ever make it to Otherlands either. I ordered an iced latte and Jiro quickly decided on a Clementine Izze (he loves him some Izze!) and a bag of Barbara's Cheese Puffs. Satchel was torn between the cheese puffs and some Groovy Granola, so he opted not to get a drink. I warned him that he would be thirsty, but he waved off my concerns.


The monkeys grabbed a table while I waited on my latte. By the time I joined them Satchel was grousing about his thirst. After a pointless round of "I told you so's" he agreed to drink some water. Then his adoring brother gave him half an Izze.

All in all it was a lovely afternoon.