Walking with Helen and Lily Belle
Catching Up at the Park
Sun Nap
What the Heck is This Thing?
Helen Offers Expert Monkey Bar Advice
Next Stop: The Moon!
Racing Down the Slide
Wheee!
Enjoying a Pho-licious Lunch with Myriam
Yum!
Our friend Myriam is in town, visiting from sunny San Diego. We’ve had such a great time catching up with her. She and Maggie have become great friends. It’s really cute to see them smiling and playing together.
This morning was one of those flat-out gorgeous Portland days. 72 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Helen and Lily Belle dropped by and we went for a walk with Squatchy to nearby St. Johns Park, where Lily Belle took the playground equipment by storm! This park has one of the weirdest play structures I have ever seen; it looks like it was made from the leftover parts of familiar play structures and just fabbed together in a way that looked like it made sense. Imagine the long flat bed of a slide, laid out horizontally and attached to the underside of a set of monkey bars that is 3’ tall. Seriously, I can’t understand what you are supposed to do with this thing. That did not deter Lily Belle and Squatchy from trying to figure it out, though.
While I was pushing Lily Belle on the swings, I tethered Squatchy to the park bench where Helen and Annie were talking. Squatch decided to hang out under the bench, where he managed to grind a wad of chewing gum into the fur on his chest. When we got home we had a fun time getting that out of his fur with a fast, laser-accurate application of a combustible citrus based degreaser, followed up by a sudsy mix of dish soap and water. Please keep in mind, this solution was proposed by the staff at the Veterinary Hospital where I brought Squatchy to get his weight checked today. And I must admit, it worked really, really well. By the way, Squatchy is down to 108.9 pounds, from 127 in August. I think we’re getting close to the point of diminishing returns with his diet, so he may be back to a maintenance dose pretty soon. Maybe when he gets under 105. Poor moose.
When we got back from our trip to the park, we headed downtown with Myriam for some lunch at Silk, a fantastic Vietnamese restaurant in the Pearl District. Yum!
While we were at the park this morning, Myriam had a phone interview with a company in Washington DC that went incredibly well. It looks like Myriam is preparing to move to the East Coast later this month! If any of you DC-ites have some thoughts about neighborhoods to embrace or avoid, I know Myriam would appreciate your feedback.
Best to you all.
- Brad, Annie, Maggie and Squatchy (BAMS)
