Adventure

"Give it back! Give it back?!"

Imagine the above being said in a little sad 2-year old voice from a tired little girl. You would do almost anything to get 'it' back for her wouldn't you?
Ha!
After almost 2 hours at the zoo we were standing by one of the final scenes, two otters playing and swimming. These are her favorite animals, so we stood there for quite a while. She was tired by this point and it was past lunch-time. I asked if she wanted to get down to better see them. She said yes.
I placed her gently on the ground and continued to watch them play. Suddenly I noticed a little brown head beginning to poke through the gap between the leaning post I was on, and the rope barrier that she had been leaning against. She was actually trying to climb in with them .. .

For those who have been to the Tucson Zoo you may know why this was more of a problem than normal. If it were the monkeys I wouldn't have been so quick to respond. In fact earlier she had almost joined the zebras. For those who don't know the Tucson Zoo, let me explain. The otter exhibit is a very large and deep pool of water with a small land area on the far side. If my daughter had succeeded she would have been swimming in water that was deeper than I am tall. Previously she had also been running headlong toward the duckpond. Not very deep, but deep enough, and with her propensity to trip I swear I had a heart attack right there.
Anyway, back to the otters. As I saw her little head poke through my heart immediately jumped into my throat (not that she was in any danger at that point), and I began holding her down while my other hand reached under and around the leaning post to get a better and lasting hold on her. Then I began to kneel to talk to her. Suddenly I saw a small white and pink object leave her hand and a small splash on the other side of the net. I stopped dead in shock. . . was that . . .? Did I just see . . . ?
Children all around us were suddenly squeeling with laughter and delight as both otters came to investigate a new toy which had been introduced to their habitat. They nuzzled the shoe and bumped it around. I stood and watched helplessly for a second, still trying to fathom how she'd done it. . .
"A shoe! A shoe mommy!"

My dear friend Autumn willingly headed toward the front of the park to get the attention of someone who could help.
Meanwhile Alisabeth and I stood and watched them play. They dunked the shoe, rolled it around in the water (it was floating 1/2 submerged by now) and kept on going. New little children were coming now who hadn't been a party to the excitement and the sound of "Mommy, there's a shoe in there" was heard every few seconds.
Parents were looking around in amusement for the child with one shoe and then grinning that "Oh how embarrassing, I'm glad it was you and not me." smile at me.
After about 5 minutes Alisabeth started reaching toward the exhibit and then looking at me, "want shoe mommy."
"I'm sorry honey, you can't have it, you gave it to the otters and they don't know how to give it back."
More children came and the chorus of "there's a shoe!" started again.
Tear welled up in my over-tired and over-hungry child's eyes. "Give it back! Give it back!"
We walked over to the nearest bench and sat down to wait. Finally Autumn came back and we left her to wait a little longer while we went and got some food in my poor child's belly.
Autumn later told me that after they had fished it out and handed it to her a little girl asked why she had thrown it in. The mother, with great understanding responded "Her little girl probably threw it in like you did when you were 2."

Other than that it's been a pretty boring week. My motivation slipped during the middle of it, but I still managed to get everything essential done, so that's okay. I had my first flop as far as dinners go (I only really cook 1 a week). I tried to make ham-bean soup. I used the white beans my mother has had in her food storage since I was a teenager, but I didn't allow them extra time to soak in water, I just followed the directions, so they were nice and crunchy. The flavor of the soup would have been great except for that little problem. Ah well, can't be perfect all the time right :)

As an update to last week Alisabeth went to bed really well for the first half of this week. Just when I thought the new method was working great she reverted and we had two or three of the worst nights yet, but yesterday and Friday night were wonderful so I think maybe she's just a little crazy and I'm not doing anything wrong. . . anyone want to back me up on that :)

Work is going great. I love taxes.
I don't think I ever told the story of my grandmother's birthday card. Excitedly I ripped open the envelope on my birthday, glad that my loving grandmother had remembered me only to find that it contained her social security statement and her retirement statement with a small note "Here's the stuff for my taxes, can you send me a copy of whatever you send to the government."
Gotta love my family.
My boss is not stressed at all this year (and with three weeks to go, that is saying A LOT), so we had a blast on Saturday reviewing a really complex return together. I did all the work on Friday (about 6.5 hrs) and then Saturday morning I came back and we went over it together. I had missed a lot of minor details, but the whole process was hilarious as we watched his taxes first shoot up when I missed some income amount and then plummet back down when we found three extra deductions. All in all the guy ended up owing $0. That's what I like to see.

Jason got a few calls this week in response to a flurry of resumes that he sent out. Several companies in Tucson seemed excited to interview him. Whether it's because of his experience, or because they're desperate for people I don't know, but I was pleased either way because it relieved my stress about him being able to find a job.
In other exciting news on his front! He is taking two classes this semester which required the rebuild of an entire engine system. The engine performance class and the transmission class. In both classes he has got the completed thing back into the vehicle and will be starting it up on Monday to make sure it's working right. With cross-ed fingers he may be done with the one and only project of the semester. Then the last few weeks will be doing minor leak checks, flushes and inspections. That would mean the major stresses are done. Wish him luck.