Thursday

BACK IN THE SADDLE: We were out and about relatively early again today in order to make day 4 of yoga camp some 40 minutes away. We made OK time, so we had a couple of minutes to kill, which meant the kids got to enjoy the great teeter totter at Lakewood Park once again.

EARLIER: Lately the kids have been reading themselves to sleep, which is great. I was happy to oblige this morning when CJ asked me for a book so he could read before he even got up. Books for 'breakfast' in bed? You betcha!
AFTERNOON ANTICS: I've posted a couple of windows on Craigslist that we bought but didn't use in our latest round of remodeling. One, a sweet Energy Star casement window, attracted the attention of %$#Lydia^%$## right away. (The characters denote unfamiliar symbols that accompanied her emails to me, including in her name. Usually these types of characters in an email are associated with the 'hot singles in your area!' or something along those lines types of spam. So I was a bit leery.

But Lydia kept writing and calling and I responded and so the plan was to meet at our place today. She said she had to wait until today, when her daughter could drive a truck, because she don't know how to drive a stickshift.

Having spoken to her I envisioned a tiny Chinese mother with a tiny Chinese daughter showing up to move a HUGE (5x5-foot) window. Lo and behold I was right. Fortunately, given my Spidey Senses, I had 'invited' Rick to our place to help load the window. Thank Gawd he could come. I won't recount the whole pick up craziness here, but suffice it to say it did take all four of us to load the window. All the while, CJ and Annabelle were charming the Chinese ladies by offering them flowers, inviting them into our house, etc.

The mother was immediately enamoured with CJ, saying how cute he was and she repeatedly told me how nice my children (yes, including Rick) were. :).

The best part was when the mom and her daughter were getting into their truck to leave, CJ asked me, "Are they part of our family?" The Chinese mother just melted at that, and so did I. Too funny.

BACK FROM THE DEAD: Today marked a day we'd been waiting and waiting and waiting for - we finally received a rubber belt that might - just might - bring our recently acquired and completely defective Famicom Disk System back from the dead.

At this point, most of America is wondering, "What is a Famicom Disk System (FDS)?"

Good question.

Well, FDS was released in February of 1986 by Nintendo as a peripheral for the Family Computer ("Famicom") console in Japan. The unit uses proprietary "floppy" disks. Though it was announced for the U.S. market, it was never released. Frankly, based on its reviews/performance, it's no wonder why. The system is/was notorious for it rubber drive belt going to tar. That's exactly what had happened in the one we bought.
So, we found tutorials on YouTube about how to replace it and ordered a small rubber belt.

It took CJ and Christian over an hour to follow the many steps to the procedure. But in the end ...
IT WORKED!! CJ was sooooooooo happy. We all were, actually.

OVERHEARD: "You're being so immature," CJ chastised Annabelle at one point today.

It made me chortle, hearing that statement coming from an 8-year-old. But I have to give CJ credit. He was calling a spade a spade at the moment he said it.

CUT IT OUT: Today we got a good start on the cookies we'll be sending to the control room at Cape Canaveral for the last launch shuttle launch.
RIGHTING A WRONG: Today, some generous benefactors (Hi Grandma & Grandpa) surprised CeeJ and Bee by sending $ for them to buy new scooters to replace the ones that were stolen from them earlier this week. Very nice! So now we're on the hunt for replacements - and you can be sure the new pair will be kept locked in the basement rather than parked along side the house in the alley.