Hero

I could have been a hero if I would have noticed that the photographer had taken no photos of us with Sarah and Ali.  Barb was very upset when she realize we did not have any photos of us and them on their big day.  Laura said we should have a redo when she comes back in August but Barb would have been so much happier if we had realized it at the time.

Hit

Julia and Dillon had dinner with Sarah and Ali the day after the wedding and Julia told us Ali said we were a hit with all the Somalians at the reception.

Teachers

When Laura showed the teachers the video of my speech that they missed, one of the teachers asked Laura how she knew Sarah.

Kid's Meal

Laura didn't like the food at the reception and she was worried she might get sick if she ate it because it was cooked in water.  However, she was lucky she found the Kid's Meal that was just chicken fingers and french fries.  So she didn't go hungry.

Speech

I was the only person who gave a speech at the reception and everyone liked it except the teachers from Sarah's high school because they missed it.  They were out in the parking lot talking.  During the speech, there were places where I mentioned each of the teachers by name and looked around the room to find them but they weren't there. It was kind of sad.

Wifi Password

I went to the bar to see if I could get the wifi password.  The manager said the username was July and the password was stayhydrated.  I should have known this was the wrong username and password because it was still June.  I then asked the bartender and she gave me the correct username June and the password golftime.

Barb

Barb was the life of the party at Sarah's reception.  She got right into all the dancing.  Later we found a picture to post on Facebook of Barb dancing where she looks like she was having the best time of her life.

Interpreter

Barb was talking to Ali's mother through an interpreter and the interpreter said Laura's hair was so beautiful and she also thought we were a very multicultural family.

Dancing

Barb said she felt so included in Ali's family after the first dance with Ali's mother.  She had no worries about fitting in after that.

Groomsman

Barb had to find the groomsman's car keys to move it but she was not able to figure out how to start the car and when she finally started it she couldn't figure out how to reverse the car.

Sunscreen

We went to the arboretum to get pictures of the wedding party.  The photographer asked me to hold up a sunscreen to help with the lighting of some of the photos.  I had no idea what she wanted or what to do and had to get specific directions from the photographer so I didn't photobomb Sarah's pictures.

Sheri Walker

Sarah's math teacher from high school came to the wedding and I was talking to her before the reception.  She asked do Sarah and Ali love in Kitchener, Guelph or elsewhere? She meant live not love.  I said they love everywhere.  She said Smart Ass.  I said miss you less.

Girls' Party

Ali felt bad waking me up at 8:30 in the morning when I answered the door in my pajamas and a case of major bed head.  He had picked some wild eucalyptus for Sarah's flower display at her wedding.  I put it on the kitchen table and went back to bed.  Later some of Sarah's friends came over to help Sarah make bouquets for the bride's maids and flower arrangements for the banquet tables.  Barb had to run out to buy little white roses in at a New Hamburg florist for the guy's boutonniers.  I stayed in bed as long as I could because I thought it was a girls' party and I didn't want to disturb them.

Drug Deal

Laura and I met with Sarah late Friday night to give her something or get something from her I can't remember what the details were.  We met in the McDonalds parking lot in Kitchener.  It was 11:07 and Laura found out that McDonalds closed at 11 pm.  It was  dark and spooky.  There were some other shady characters in cars in the parking lot and it looked like we were there to make a drug deal.

En Route

Sarah had flowers for her wedding delivered to our house.  They came pretty early in the morning and Barb texted Sarah.  At 11:30 Sarah said she was en route to our house to help Barb with the flowers.  Sarah arrived at our house at 5 pm.  I guess by en route Sarah meant that she was doing a whole bunch of errands on the way to our house.

Tabs

Barb was complaining about problems with her cellphone about how slow the web browser was.  When Laura gave Barb her old phone she looked at Barb's old phone and realized that Barb was not closing her tabs after she was finished looking at them.  Laura found that Barb had 1856 tabs open at the same time.  That was why her browser was so slow.

Friend

Laura comes to all my ballgames and likes to keep score on the bench.  After the game tonight, she told me she had made a friend on the bench.  I thought she meant one of the players.  Then she showed me a big toad she found under the bench.  She said she found him when she dropped her pen and it went under the bench.

Laughing

I told Laura about how much I liked Strange Planet on Instagram and she said she also subscribed to Strange Planet.  Laura and I laughed and laughed about the Strange Planet cartoons on Instagram.  We read them all aloud and I was just crying I thought it was so funny.  But Barb didn't think it was funny at all.

Swag

Laura gave us really neat swag from Disasterpiece Apparel and Mischief and Mayhem.  Barb was very impressed when I was talking street talk about swag.  Unfortunately, I quickly proceeded to lose all of it.  It must be somewhere in our little house but I just can't find it.

Fitbit

Laura had given us Fitbit knock offs last year.  Barb didn't like hers because it didn't show her sleep properly. So she bought a real Fitbit on sale at Costco.  She bought me one too but I didn't like how it looked on my wrist.  I thought it was too feminine.  So Barb returned mine and I kept the one Laura had given me.  Barb loved how her new Fitbit monitored her sleep and she was really interested about my sleep.  So she was really excited about Laura giving me her old Fitbit when she came to visit.  Laura set it up for me and I tried it out and found out that it wasn't the same as Barb's. It didn't really monitor my sleep any better.  It was good to have a real Fitbit though because now I could participate with Laura, Barb, Sarah and Haleigh in the Workweek Hustle.

Snapchat

Barb hates Snapchat.  She will get a notification saying that she has a Snapchat message but by the time she finds her glasses to look at it on her phone, the message is gone.

Netherlands

Laura and I were watching the World Championships of Fastball on the internet from the Czech Republic.  In one of the games, the Netherlands pitcher was pitching with the bases loaded and tried to throw a change up.  Somehow instead of going towards the plate, the ball rolled to first base.  All the runners started to run and the Netherlands infielders tagged the runners running home and running to third and got both out.  No one really knew what was happening. After it was all over, the umpires got together to discuss what happened and they decided to just call the pitch a ball and put all the runners back on their bases with nobody out.  The play would have made a very funny highlight reel.

Phone

Barb was complaining that her phone would never hold a charge.  So she couldn't even take it out of the house because it died so fast.  Laura gave Barb her old phone and then spent days setting it up for Barb and explaining all the new features to her.  It is too bad that she just couldn't have replaced the battery on her old phone.

Texting Parking Lot

The special free parking lot for texting is a great new thing at the airport.  So I went there when I was picking up Laura.  She texted me telling me she was outside the terminal waiting for me.  I texted back that I would be there in a minute.  But when I was driving to the airport from the parking lot, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the 401 highway heading east away from the airport.  It took me a long time to get to an exit where I could turn around and go back the airport to pick her up.  She must have wondered what took me so long.

Eye Mask

Barb now goes to bed almost as late as me.  So she wears an eye mask to keep the light out in the morning.  Last night she did not want to wake up too much and didn't take her eye mask off when she went to the bathroom.  When she got back in bed she cracked her arm and her shoulder and her head on the headboard of the bed trying to lie down again.

Hew

I was writing an email to Barb and typed Hew Cold be a Hot One.  Barb understood somehow that I meant to say Phew Could be a Hot One.

Gas

I was running out of gas on the drive home from Cobourg and stopped at a service center to fill up.  The gas pumps were very crowded and the people very slow.  So I decided to use the pump on the other side of the car.  Unfortunately it didn't have a long hose. So I had to try to pump the gas with the nozzle upside down.  When I tried to do that the gas was leaking out and the pump was stopping all the time.  Eventually I was making such a mess that I gave up.  I had put about 10 dollars worth of gas in the car but thought that should get me home.

Cobourg

I was ready to come home from a ball tournament in Cobourg and told Barb I was about to leave.  Barb said that Sarah was coming over but was stuck in traffic on the 401.  So Barb looked up accident on the 401 on the internet and sees a major accident with a car and a transport truck with all the lanes on the highway closed for 4 hours.  So she tells me not to hurry.  Then Sarah walked in the house.  There was no accident. The report she saw on the internet was an accident from back in December.  She showed me the report when I got home and I said you should have noticed something was wrong with the report because the reporter had a winter coat on and you could see snow on the ground around the accident.

Metal Straw

I was walking around the house with my phone and power cord looking for my metal straw getting frustrated.  Finally I asked Barb if she had seen it.  She said it is in your hand.

Corel

Barb was trying to buy Corel dishes at Walmart as a wedding present for Sarah and looked them up on the interenet.  The Walmart website said that one plate was $26.  Barb couldn't believe it could be that expensive.  So she wrote a question in the comments section of the webpage.  They replied the next day but Barb never saw it because she didn't check her SPAM file for a reply.

Fry

We have a new young pitcher on the team this year too.  His name is Kyle Fry.  The guys nicknamed him Greasy and Chicken Fry and Stir Fry.

Blue and White

We have a new very young player on the team who is country boy from Sarnia.  We were waiting to find out if the game was going to be played because there were big puddles on the diamond.  A bunch of us were standing around home plate and Kole was talking.  We had not really ever seen play but he started bragging around how far he would hit the ball today.  He looked out at the farmer's field behind the ball fences and said he was going to hit that blue and white horse.  We said what is a blue and white horse and he pointed to a horse in the field wearing a blue and white blanket on its back.

Parking Lot

We played at an unusual diamond on Sunday morning early.  I parked behind the community center instead of the parking lot because I was afraid my car would get hit by a foul ball.  I was the first one there.  When the guys started to arrive, I got out of my car behind the community center and came around to the diamond.  I heard the guys all yelling where is Ivy.  Then they yelled there is Ivy coming around the building. Hi Ivy.

Waitress

I was trying to hook up to the wifi at Boston Pizza and I got up to ask the waitresses for the wifi password.  She told me and I took out a little piece of paper to write it down.  The guys all thought I was trying to make it with the waitress and was trying to get her phone number.

Boston Pizza

The guys were making fun of Ivy saying he missed the email to wear his team baseball cap.  I was the only one there without a cap on.  They also made fun of my Dad's hair saying that they liked the gel that keeps my hair in place.

Mustard

On Saturday night of the first tournament with my competitive fastball team, all of the players met at Bostons Pizza in Kitchener for dinner.  The guys like to kid me about my Dad clothes.  One of the players called everyone's attention to ask me if my yellow sweater came with relish and ketchup.

Tim Hortons

I met Sarah at the Tim Hortons near where she was getting her bangs cut.  We were both exactly on time and parked together in the parking lot.  Inside Sarah said I fit right in with all the old people there drinking coffee and eating donuts in the afternoon.

Crash

I was supposed to meet Sarah at Tim Hortons in Kitchener and give her back her Windows 10 computer.  Before I was leaving I started it up to remove my accounts from her browser and then it crashed.  I didn't want to disappoint Sarah.  So I kept her Windows 10 computer and brought another computer that she had given me a while back that was broken and that I had installed Linux on and now worked okay.  I hoped that would be okay with Sarah.  She has never used Linux before it is a little like a MacIntosh.

Magic

Sarah asked me how I had fixed her computer or was it magic.  I said I had reinstalled Windows 10 but it was mostly magic.

Wallet

Barb gave me some cash because I hadn't gone to the bank lately and might need it at the ball park this weekend.  I was putting the cash in my wallet and found my appointment card from the doctor's office in my wallet for my appointment in November.  I had been looking for that appointment card for a long time to write the date in the family calendar.

Broke

Barb hold Andy not to break her pickleball when they were playing today.  Later in the game, Looey lobbed on purpose and Andy mashed it and broke Barb's ball.

Tony

I looked at hotels in Niagara and they were over $250 a night for the weekend.  I found an Airbnb place for $39 a night in St Catherines about 20 minutes drive from the ball park and booked it for Friday and Saturday night.  The owner of the house, Tony, was sleeping on the couch in the livingroom on Saturday night when I came home from the ball park.  He was obviously drunk and he yelled at me when I came in the door.  The house was a mess.  There were paintings that had fallen off the wall and were blocking the stairway up to my room and there were bowls and broken ceramics on the floor of the hallway.  I went up to my room but then I came back down to make sure I had locked the door and he yelled at me from the couch again.  I went up to my room and locked the door.  I found out the wifi was not working so I couldn't use my computer or my iPad. So I was texting on my phone with Barb asking if I should just come home that night.  I decided to stay and I left early on Sunday morning.  Tony was still sleeping on the couch as a left.  Afterwards, Airbnb kept asking me how I rated the place and I never replied because I didn't want to get Tony mad at me.

Niagara Tournament

I went to watch the Niagara Fastball Tournament and one of my friends who plays on my competitive team was playing.  I watched him hit 3 homeruns in one game.  He got 10 runs batted in with two 3 run shots and one grand slam.  Each time there were 2 other guys from my competitive team on base in front of him.

Tomorrow

Barb said she played lousy in the women's event at the London tournament and I wanted to say tomorrow is another day but didn't because I didn't want to sound flippant.  Then on Sunday, Barb played great and won silver.  So tomorrow was another day.

London Tournament

Barb's pickleball partner always says that the tournaments should give them a pickleball instead of a shirt that they will never wear.  That would be so much more useful.  Barb and Nancy were surprised when the London tournament actually gave them a pickleball just for entering the tournament.

Ottawa Public Library

I got an email today saying my Ottawa Public Library card had been renewed for another year.  I find that so funny because I haven't lived in Ottawa since 2015 but I guess they get a budget based on the number of people who use the library.  So they approximate that by how many people have library cards.  I do use the Ottawa Library Digital services a lot for ebooks and audio books but I obviously don't pay any city taxes to help pay for those services.  Thank you Ottawa.

Spell Check

Barb was trying to find a man partner for an upcoming pickleball tournament.  She was messaging a girlfriend and she told her wanted to mention that her guy would have to 55 years old because that is was her opening.  But the spell check corrected it to "My gut has to be 55 to fit into my opening".

Thrift Store

Every year on our anniversary, we go to the McDonalds around the corner for dinner and to the Thrift Store across the street to see what is new there.  I usually buy a whole bunch of old CDs at the Thrift Store.  Today I bought a CD that I thought was Bryan Adams "18 Till I Die" but when I got home and opened it up the CD inside was Bryan Adams "Best of Me".  Surprise!

Comments

Sarah sent me a message with Haleigh's comments on my recent blog entries and I accidently hit an unhappy face on it.  Sarah was very worried that I had a problem with Haleigh's comments.  I told her it was an accident but I didn't know how to correct it.  In fact, I didn't even know I had done it.

Cell Phone Again

I was trying to get someone for my softball team for a tournament in Niagara Falls. I was trying to get one of the players from one of my other teams.  I found his number from one of the other guys on the team and was putting it in my contacts in my phone and accidently phoned him.  It was 3 am.  I hung up quickly before I disturbed him.  When I texted him the next day, he said he was available and interested in playing.  Then later that week, I found out that we weren't in the tournament because we were the 13th team that showed interest and the organizers decided to limit the tournament to 12 teams.  I had to text him back and tell him we were not in the tournament.  I went to the tournament to watch anyway and saw lots of friends there.

Barb Needs Glasses

Barb was confused because she tried to put her coffee in the microwave to warm it up without getting her glasses.  She wanted to heat her cup for 2 minutes 22 seconds.  She pressed the numbers correctly but she pressed delay instead of start.  Then she hit 2 minutes and 22 seconds again and pressed start.  The microwave ran for 4 minutes and 44 seconds.  The coffee boiled over and burned on to the microwave.

Family of Geese

Both Barb and I saw the family of geese at the pond at the entrance to the community that is there every year.  There was a mother, father and 4 babies.  A few weeks later, they were gone.  Definitely something had happened to them but we never found out what.

Cell Phone

When I got to the ball game, I realized I didn't have my cell phone.  While I was at the game, Barb found my cell phone down the side of the chair in the television room where I was waiting.  It had fallen out of my pocket too.

Car Keys

I was early for my fastball game.  So even though I was all dressed in my uniform and ball jacket I decided to sit for a while in the television room with Barb waiting until I had to leave.  Then when it was time to leave, I got in the car but couldn't find my keys.  I came back in and Barb and I looked all over the house.  Barb told me again that I should leave them on the bench at the door.  I said I thought I did.  Finally, Barb found my keys on the chair in the television room where I was waiting they must have fallen out of my pocket when I was sitting waiting.

New Computer Glasses

Barb fell asleep in her chair while watching television.  When she woke up she couldn't find her computer glasses.  She searched and searched.  Later she finally found them hooked on the blinds behind her chair.  They must have been on her head when she leaned back in her chair and got all mixed up in the blinds and were just hanging there.

Poutine

Barb couldn't wait to get back to Canada and go to Costco to get her favourite poutine at the snack bar.  She can't get poutine in Florida.  No one even knows what poutine is there.