LF knows that his dad likes t-shirts (the bane of my laundry existence, so much folding!) so he bought good ol' dad one which says "It's all fun and games til the flying monkeys attack" with a stick person and stick monkeys. I'm not sure which part I like better, the picture or the words. Ed thinks it's completely hilarious. I got him pink cups shaped like coconuts with a tropical flower on it, and hurricane (the "tropical" drinks for those tropical coconuts) fixin's. He liked those too. We started out the day with pecan waffles (part of the current food adventure (leftover mix which was used for making fish and chips and pecans for cookies), see below), milk and orange juice, and then headed for the pool. Apparently (get it, parent, father's day, ok, so it's lame), everyone else had the same thought. Actually, although we'd planned to go for a couple of weeks now, we didn't know dad's were free yesterday, but everyone else did! It was elbow to elbow. It was, however riddled with the strangest rude behavior. When we pulled into the parking lot, I got out, had the bag slung over my shoulder and was closing the door when an oversized (even for the type of vehicle it was!) SUV decided they couldn't wait the 30 more seconds it would take to wait on me being out the space and missed me by inches. Huh?! Strange. Now, I don't know if this is true where you live, but here, you don't sit on, take, or even breathe on the lounge chair that belongs to someone else, even if it's saved with one shoe, much less covered in two towels, three pairs of shoes, two beach bags... but twice yesterday we had to tolerate people sitting on our stuff! Huh?! Once a smoker (which is a major no-no at the pool) was sitting on Ed's chair had my mom glare (she's soft spoken, and really, that's as mean as she gets, the OPPOSITE of me) at him and sheepishly got up to go smoke somewhere else. The second time, I asked Ed if he would mind asking the woman who was sitting, literally, on my stuff, to please get off as my $200 eyeglasses had been placed delicately on top. She stood up, looked at where she was sitting and sat back down. Double HUH?! Cause, even if you decided to sit for a couple of minutes, ok, it's only kinda rude, but if you were called on it, you were abhorrently rude and wouldn't leave? K. I don't think so. Last, there was a three-ish girl who walked up to me and called me mommy until I turned around. And she realized I wasn't, so went on her search. There were 100s of people there yesterday, I wasn't about to let her trot off looking alone in that crowd!!!! She was calling, mommy, mommy? as she rounded the next side of the pool and when I hit the ground running. She wouldn't stop and wouldn't let me near her (unusual, because I'm normally really good with kids, 'specially not my own). She kept saying, go, I know where she is (don't follow me!) and I kept saying, stop, let's look around for her and I'm going to stay with you until we find her. As she made it back to where we started she was about to dart off into another part of the pool and I decided that was far enough. She definitely didn't know where her mommy was and her mom was definitely not around enough to see what was going on. I apologized and told her I was sorry for picking her up, but I insisted. We have to talk to the lifeguard who WILL help us find mommy. Another couple had been watching the whole deal and I begged them to help me, i.e. get the lifeguard while I hold her down; she was becoming understandably frantic at this point. At which point, some lady came up nonchalantly and said, "Oh, she's with me". She couldn't possibly have cared less that sweet girl was in tears or that someone cared enough to make sure she didn't end up in the wrong hands or face down in the pool. I just wanted to smack her, but told her I was glad she was back with her and patted her back. The couple who helped me came over as they were leaving and said with emphasis "thank YOU for looking for her mom" like, at least YOU cared, and certainly seemed as shaken as I that there for the grace of God could've been us. Alls well that ends well though.

At home, money has been ultra-tight since someone whose name I won't mention (ED) didn't pay the taxes and spent money we didn't have on the assumption we'd have it replaced within days since the "stimulus" check was on its way. We still don't have it. We've now paid the taxes and the $1.73 penalty, but no check for awhile. So we're having to make up for the spent money by cutting back on everything. And I do mean everything. Food is down to whatever is left in the fridge and pantry. We'll go back to the "normal" budget for food at the end of the week. Water, gas and the house payment will be back on track too. Electricity is less behind and that'll be back on track next week. To say the least, dinners have been interesting. I cleaned out the fridge and freezer in order to take inventory, see where I stood and get creative with what I had. I have a blue million cheeses (yea!), potatoes, and pasta. There's the side dishes. I also have a bunch of tortillas. Ok, but what? I had chicken and thought about chicken salad, but opted instead for a chicken quesadilla since Ed was hungry and I wasn't. The salsa that went on it met up with leftover chili, some of the cheese and became dip to go with the chips still in the pantry that were being overlooked. Appetizer for dinner last night. I found some leftover hot wings and Ed enjoyed that the other night. I am now down to, more jars of chili; cans of tuna (he's one of those raised on the blue box mac-n-cheese, so finds it hard to eat "Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Chorizo, Spinach, Lemon, and Pancetta & Chorizo and Spinach Pilaf"); a chicken carcass which will probably become soup (the pasta can go here too); green beans; spam (his, along with rye bread and sauerkraut (spam rubens, he calls them); and peaches. I have been leaving it scant so that maybe he'll be more aware of the finances, to realize it only goes so far. With it being father's day though, I let it slide for one night. I told him that since we managed to get an extra free entrance the pool we could spent all the ticket's price on dinner. He's been chomping at the bit to use his gas grill that's dying and out of gas, as a charcoal grill. Of course, meat and potatoes guy he is, picked ribeyes. We already had potatoes!, so baked taters with more of that sour cream. As you know, the appetizer was chips with dip and cocktails were hurricanes. We actually felt like we feasted. Everyone was happy. For some reason LF was flipping through the on-Demand movies and picked a movie I wanted to see, but missed in the theaters. Ed was game for that too and we watched National Treasure 2. We ended the night sated with great company, food and times.