Tennis Balls, Anyone?

Samarra likes to chase her tennis ball across the yard.  This is a well-known fact to anyone who spends more then 3 minutes with Samarra outside.  She can catch it on the fly, on a bounce, or stalk it like prey if it's rolling on the ground.

She has recently chewed through her tennis ball and now we know what the inside of a tennis ball looks like.  Since getting Samarra we have learned what a demolished soccer ball, a chewed up baseball, a Frisbee with tooth marks, and other altered items look like.

There are many things you can do with a tennis ball, besides playing tennis or fetch.  If you google tennis ball images you will see that you can make a little house for a little mouse with one.  You can create a chair out of tennis balls.  One website listed several uses for tennis balls including using half of one to remove light bulbs from a lamp while the bulb is still hot. 

There are directions to "safely" cut a tennis ball in half using an exacto knife.  Really?  The only safe way I could do that would be to have someone else do it for me.

It's raining now so Fetch is off the list of Samarra's options for the moment.  Rain also prevented J-dude from playing baseball today, thought is was not raining at game time.  The field had turned to something like quicksand from earlier downpours today.

No tennis, no baseball, no fetch.   What did I do today?  I made brownies and cookies for a potluck tomorrow after church.  I helped J-dude put his room back together after it got painted a beautiful bright yellow-with-blue-trim this week.  I napped on the couch.  I procured groceries. 

And I blogged!  Just call me Frau Blogger. 

 

Baseball and a Movie

It was a fine weekend of activity with the little people who are not so little anymore.  Both of them are over the 5 foot height mark.  I can wear my son's hand-me-down green high tops.  Sisi and I have friendly arguments over who gets to wear the tie dye t-shirts that were once mine.  I know the days of wanting to go to a game or the movies with "mom" are coming to a close so I especially enjoyed this weekend.

Saturday night J-dude and I went to a Peoria Chiefs game in Peoria.  The A level team now affiliated with the St Louis Cardinals won the game in the bottom of the ninth inning 1 to 0, scoring the winning run on a wild pitch.  That's right, not a lot of hits in the game.  But a win, and with fireworks afterward.  And an appearance by Bob Gibson who was my favorite pitcher for the Cardinals in the 60's when I was a kid learning to appreciate the game.  I learned by listening to games broadcast by Harry Carey on the radio.  My favorite players besides the amazing Bob G were Lou Brock and Orlando Cepeda.   Those were some fine baseball days, and the Cardinals won the World Series a few times.  We used to get to watch the Series games on the new color TV in the grade school cafeteria.   Hard to believe.

Sunday both kids and I went to see the Star Trek movie "Into Darkness."  Star Trek movies have also changed, with more of the big weapon prolonged fight scenes that seem to be everywhere, as best I can tell from watching movie previews.   Still, it was a Star Trek movie and had Star Trek kinds of humor and bonding among ship-mates, and Sisi cried when Spock thought that Kirk was dead and...wait...spoiler alert...and Spock actually shed tears.

Of course he is only half Vulcan.

But I digress.

We got the largest tub of popcorn and sat in the back row together, and we all enjoyed seeing the Enterprise on the big screen.